Si> 
 
 ' 1 
 
 
HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL, 
 TILL THE DEATH OE HENKY II. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 REV. D. FALLOON, DD., LL.D, 
 
 EDITED BY REV. JOHN IRWIN, A.M., 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN LOVELL, 
 
 ST. NICHOLAS STREET. 
 
 1863. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
Entered according to the Act of the Prorincial Parliament, in the jrear 
 one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, by Amelia Jane 
 French, relict of the late Rev. Dr. Falloow, in the Ofl&ce of the 
 Eegistrar of the Province of Canada. 
 
XA9\\ 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface t 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Origin, Manners, and Customs of the Ethnic Irish 9 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 Religion of the Ethnic Irish 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Irish Monarchy anterior to the mission of St. Patrick. . 44 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Conversion of the Irish to Christianity 68 
 
 CHAPTER y. 
 Christianity in Ireland till the death of St. Columba 92 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Monachism in Ireland 107 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Civil and Military History till the Northern Invasion 126 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Irish Church till the commencement of the Ninth Cen- 
 tury 141 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 First Invasion of the Northmen 162 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Second Danish War 190 
 
 1767 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Briea Boroihme 214 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Events subsequent to the death of Brien Boru 243 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 The Irish Monarchy Anterior to the Ascension of Roderic 
 
 O'Conor 263 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Irish Church from the Danish Invasion till the Acces- 
 sion of Roderick O'Connor 281 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Invasion of Ireland by English Adventurers 310 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Proceedings of Strongbow, and Invasion by Henry II of 
 England 341 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Events subsequent to Henry's personal Invasion of Ireland 
 
 till the time of his Death 363 
 
 Appendix 399 
 
PEE F AC E 
 
 To write history is at all times a difficult task, but to write 
 a history of the Irish nation is more than commonly difficult. 
 This arises, to an important degree, from the prejudices 
 engendered by a diversity in race an d in religion amongst those 
 to whom, it might be presumed, that such a performance 
 would be chiefly interesting. But the difficulty is greatly 
 enhanced by the paucity of ancient and authentic records, 
 which, in a work like the present, should not only serve for 
 reference and authority, but be, in fact,Jhe basis of a 
 reliable historical narrative. It is unfortunate, in the case 
 of Ireland, that the confusion and devastation which 
 attended the Danish invasion produced, amongst other 
 results, the almost total destruction of those manuscript 
 records of preceding ages, which, whether they referred to 
 the times preceding the introduction of Christianity into 
 the island or those succeeding that event, were preserved in 
 the monastic seats of learning, and, therefore, in the destruc- 
 tion of the latter, fell a prey to the ferocity of ignorant 
 and pagan invaders. The belief is, in some quarters, 
 entertained that the Norman conquerors imitated, in this 
 respect, the conduct of the Danes, destroying, as far as 
 possible, what had escaped the notice or the violence of 
 these ruthless pirates : but, whatever were the faults of the 
 Normans, and how atrocious soever was their conduct 
 towards Ireland, the charge in question can hardly be sub- 
 stantiated. It is, indeed, to be regetted that for an account 
 of the events succeeding their invasion we are so dependent 
 on one of their own historians, Giraldus Cambrensis, whose 
 transparent hatred of the Irish people make his statements, 
 in relation to their character and habits at that era, not 
 always reliable. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 Still, whatever be the difficulties to be encountered by the 
 student of Irish history, arising from the causes just 
 adverted to, sufficient facilities remain to enable any person 
 competent, and willing to make use of them, to form an 
 impartial idea of that ancient glory of the Irish people, 
 from which, in later ages, Jiaving declined, they presented 
 the aspect of civil anarchy, with its consequent social and 
 religious results, as their normal condition. Numerous 
 writers have, at different periods since the English conquest, 
 carefully gathered up whatever remained either in the form 
 of manuscript records or authenticated tradition [available 
 as collateral proof,] that could, at their respective eras, be dis- 
 covered. A mere list of their names would be too length- 
 ened for our present purpose; nor indeed, is it quite 
 necessary, since the readers of this volume will perceive 
 that its lamented author has referred his statements on 
 particular subjects to the authority of several amongst 
 these writers. In the notes will be found an abundance of 
 such references, made originally by the author before he 
 left his native country, and when he had ample materials 
 for this work at his command. A few of these authorities 
 referred to, have been satisfactorily consulted by the editor 
 since the manuscript of this history came into his hands, 
 and the accuracy of the rest may, in his firm belief, be 
 taken for granted. They will assuredly be so by those 
 who were acquainted with the exact literary habits of the 
 deceased author, as well as with the judicious and impartial 
 character of his mind. 
 
 One of the difficulties to be encountered in writing his- 
 tory, at the present time, results from the general desire 
 for a somewhat dramatic and sensational style. At this 
 the author has not directly aimed; and yet, we think, 
 that his book will be found eminently readable. If the 
 most critical attention to the purest sources of information, 
 an exact and logical method in his arrangement of histo- 
 rical facts and his deductions from them, an eloquence which 
 occasionally scintillates its brightness even through dull 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Vli 
 
 historical details, form a claim to popularity — then this 
 History of Ireland ought to be popular. There is neither 
 the learned profundity of Robertson, the majestic grandi- 
 loquence of Gibbon, nor the fluent racinessof Macaulay in 
 the author's mode of treating his subject ; but there are 
 qualities of perhaps greater value to the general reader, 
 transparent in the book. It is besides a timely production 
 on this side of the Atlantic, and clearly manifests the fatal 
 injury which divisions amongst the people and their leaders, 
 insubordination to established authority, and the want of 
 true patriotism are inevitably calculated to produce. 
 
 In preparing for the press the materials left to his discre- 
 tion, the editor has sought to preserve, as far as possible, the 
 phraseology of the lamented author, so that his friends may 
 generally recognize his accustomed style — a style, at 
 -once imaginative and eloquent, classical and pure. In a 
 book which, according to the design of its author, must be 
 brief, brevity might appear to be almost incompatible with 
 clearness,* but both will be found delectably conjoined in 
 this volume. It will no doubt, be regretted by many 
 lovers of Irish History that comparatively so little is given 
 respecting the life and times of Concover MacNessa(p. 49) ; 
 of Conn ^'of the hundred battles" (p. 56); of Finn 
 MacCoul (p. 59) ; of Nial "of the nine hostages" (p. 66.) ; 
 and, at a period still later, of Brian Boru, who was at once 
 the Solon and the Epaminondas of his country. Again, 
 in the ecclesiastical portions of the volume, regret will 
 probably be felt that more copious details are not fur- 
 nished ; but it must be remembered that all these things 
 could not be introduced into a popular " handbook " of Irish 
 History : whilst the dissertation on Ancient Irish Philoso- 
 phy in Chapter YI., the calm and judicious remarks on 
 the constitution of the Irish monarchy occasionally inter- 
 persed through the earlier portion of the book, the sum- 
 mary of the Lives of St. Patrick, (p. 80), of Columba,t 
 
 * Horace, Epistola ad Pisones, 26. 
 
 t Or Colum-kill " the dove of the Churches:' 
 
VIU PREFACE. 
 
 of the justly celebrated John ScotusEregina (Chap. XIV),* 
 and, at a later period, of Columbanus, Aidan, and Virgilius 
 (pp. 152 to 160) — will amply repair the perusal of the 
 students of the ecclesiastical and civil history of Ireland. 
 Some regrets have been expressed to the editor that his 
 late lamented friend had not continued the History of 
 Ireland down to the present time. This was the less 
 necessary in a work like the present, inasmuch as the 
 History of Ireland has been merged into that of England 
 since the Norman conquest. Besides, the difficulties arising 
 from partisan opinions become more intense in proportion 
 as we advance towards our own times. For the rest, the 
 author might well have felt like the ancient historian 
 of Rome: " Et legentium plerisque, hand dubito, prima 
 origines proximaque originibus minus prcebitura volup- 
 tatis sint, festinantibus ad hcec nova. * ^ jf^ * 
 Ugo, contra, hoc quoque Idboris proeminm petam, ut me 
 a conspectu malorum, quoe nostra tot per annos vidit 
 cetas, tantisper certe dum prisca ilia iota mente repetOy 
 avertam.''f 
 
 * Vide Hallam's Middle Ages, Vol. II., p. 322, Note 2, Paris 
 edition. Also "Literature of Europe," Vol. I., p. 70, same edition 
 Tit. Livii. Histor. Prefatio. 
 
HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Origin, Manners, and Customs op the Ethnic Irish. 
 
 To what precise point in the scale of chronology we are 
 to refer the time when Ireland first received its inhabitants, 
 can never be determined with any degree of certainty ; but 
 it is admitted that a succession of colonists of different 
 origin arrived at a very early period and formed settlements 
 in the island, though it is dif&cult to ascertain whence they 
 came, and the order in which they respectively appeared. 
 
 From the uniform traditions, however, of the people 
 themselves, we learn that the principal and most important 
 inhabitants of Ireland, in early times, were descendants of 
 a colony from Celtic Spain ; that these were either preceded, 
 or more probably followed, by another of the Belgae, denomi- 
 nated, in the early history of the country, Firbolgs, who 
 might have come either from Britain or immediately from 
 Oaul ; that, in addition to these, the Danaans, or, as they 
 were Latinized, the Damnonii, together with a variety of 
 other colonists from the northern parts of Europe, who 
 were called by various names,^ settled in the island at 
 
 * The Irish called them Fomharaigh or foreigners, and their 
 country Fomoire. For their probable origin, s%e O'FlaJierti/s 
 OgyS} P' 303. B 
 
10 mSTORY aF IRBLASDv ^ 
 
 different times, and who, having been descended from tixe 
 great Scythian swarm, gave the name of Scuits or Soots to 
 tho inhabitants of the country at a comparatively modem 
 period;* and hence the island was afterwards called Scotia, 
 Perhaps this diversity of race, taken in connexion with 
 tihe subsequent ramifications into which the families of dif 
 ferent chieftains naturally extended themselves, may in 
 some measure account for the incredible number of king- 
 doms into which the island was divided at a very early 
 period. This practice, however, of multiplying regal dis- 
 tricts was not peculiar to Ireland, but seems to have bee!> 
 prevalent in most countries in the infancy of society. 
 There were no less than ten kings in Thessaly, according 
 to Homer, at the time of the Trojan war; six, in Pelopon- 
 nesus ; and almost every portion of ancient Greece was par- 
 celled out into regal districts. It is therefore by no means 
 surprising that so many of the petty toparchs of Ireland 
 assumed the title of kings, notwithstanding the very limited 
 nature of their respective territories. The province of 
 Hunster alone contained in it, at one time, no less thaa 
 eighteen kingdoms. Six of these were in the present 
 county of Cork; four, in the county of Limerick; and the 
 remaining eight, in Kerry, Waterford, Ossory, and part of 
 Tipperary.f 
 
 The princes who governed these regal districts respec- 
 tively were all subject to the Ard-Righ, or provincial dynast 
 of Munster ; for, besides the arrangement to which we hav* 
 now adverted, the whole island was divided into five prov- 
 
 • See Littleton's Hen, 11, Vol. Ill, pp 15, 16, I>uJ>. ed. 
 } LedTTioli'9 Antlqultieg pf Ireland. 
 
oy TBl^ ETHNIC IRISJI. 11 
 
 inces, each having a prince of its own, who was lord para- 
 mount to ihejlath, or chief, of every sept within his province ; 
 whilst a monarch chosen from a particular stock,* had at 
 least a nominal authority over the whole island. 
 
 That a monarchy was founded in Ireland, at some very 
 remote period of its history, in which the sovereign was 
 elective and greatly limited in his power, is admitted by 
 every authority to which we can possibly appeal ; and that 
 it was necessary he should be chosen from a particular 
 family, is in accordance with all the traditions of the Irish 
 nation. The same rule was followed in making choice of 
 the provincial djmasts, and even of the flath or chief of 
 every sept. 
 
 In the election and inauguration of the monarch, great 
 care was taken to ascertain that he was of pure Milesian 
 extraction. After his election was declared, and before the 
 ceremony of inauguration was performed, the chief senachie, 
 or antiquarian, stepped forward, and having bent his knee 
 to the monarch elect, proclaimed aloud to the people his 
 genealogy, through every successive generation, in a long 
 catalogue of names, most of them real, but others perhaps 
 fictitious, up to Milesius himself. The king was then 
 placed upon a stone, which commonly stood upon a hill,| 
 
 • By the law of Tanistry the person elected was to be the oldest 
 or worthiest of the family { and this rule was followed by the 
 Germans, Saxons, Swedes, and Norwegitins, at the very earliest 
 stages of their history. — See Pink. Scot., Vol. 7, p. 261, 
 
 t Some of the stones used for this purpose bore the impress of 
 a fdot, supposed to be the measure of that of their first monarch 
 or chief, as the case may he f^-See Spenser's View of the State of 
 Irelmd, 
 
it HISDOaY OP IRELAND. 
 
 and there took a solemn oath to observe and maintain the 
 old laws and customs of the country. A white wand was 
 then presented to him by a proper officer as a badge of his 
 authority ; and, bearing this in his hand, he descended from 
 the stone, and turned himself round thrice forward and 
 thrice backward. 
 
 In order also that a due provision should be made for 
 the exercise of sovereign authority, without any interrup- 
 tion from faction or intrigue, a successor called the Eo)/- 
 damna * was appointed to the monarch during his lifetime, 
 who, on his demise, was to assume the functions of his 
 predecessor, and exercise the power and authority of the 
 supreme ruler of the island. 
 
 It would be impossible, at a period which does not come 
 within the limits of authentic history, to trace with accu- 
 racy the origin and progress of the Irish monarchy. The 
 well-known annalist of Clonmacnoise, who lived in the 
 eleventh century, and whose character stands high for faith- 
 fulness and veracity, pronounces all the records of the Irish 
 uncertain before the reign of Kimbaoth, the founder of the 
 palace of Eamania in the province of Ulster.f 
 
 From this prince there is a formidable host of monarchs 
 given us by the bardic historians ; but to account for this, 
 it is only necessary to remember the number of kings of 
 different grades for which Ireland was remarkable during 
 the earlier portion of its history. From such a profusion 
 therefore of royal materials a facility was afforded to the 
 
 * See O'Con. Dissert., note p. 48. 
 
 t " Omnia monumenta Scotorum nsque Cimbaoth incerta 
 erant."— Tigernacb, the annalist, died in the year 1088.— /Set 
 Ware^s Writers, 
 
ORIGIN, ETC., OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. 18 
 
 bards, as well as a strong temptation, to fabricate their list 
 of reigning monarchs, and, without any fear of detection, 
 to give a succession of kings to the whole island, together 
 with a corresponding system of chronology far exceeding 
 the bounds of credulity and truth. 
 
 Besides, if the statement be true that all these potentates 
 had pursued each other with eagerness along the sanguinary 
 stage of an elective monarchy ; — that, by the constitution, 
 minors being incapable of governing, no prince could be- 
 come a candidate for the throne before he had arrived at 
 the age of twenty-five ; — that revolutions were also frequent ; 
 and that in a contest between two rivals for the sovereignty, 
 the question was always decided by the sword, it must be 
 obvious that the writer who ascribes, under all these circum 
 •tances, a reign of sixty or seventy years to some of the 
 Irish monarchs, and asserts that one of them lived to the 
 advanced age of one hundred and fifty, invalidates his own 
 testimony, and renders it impossible that his authority 
 should be taken for anything as certain, in the earlier stages 
 of Irish history. 
 
 Were we able to give an authentic account of the acces- 
 sion and death of every monarch that filled the imperial 
 throiie of Ireland during the reign of Druidism, it would 
 be found that the greater number of those princes, who got 
 the title of monarchs, have left nothing behind them but 
 merely their names, and most frequently the record of their 
 premature death. They pass before us in rapid succession, 
 like tha shadow of clouds drifted over a harvest- field, 
 but their evanescent career is marked by very few incidents 
 of political or national importance. 
 
 Divided, indeed, as Ireland anciently was, amongst its 
 
14 HISTORY OF lEELAND. 
 
 provincial kings and inferior toparchs, domestic feuds and 
 a constant scene of bloodshed form some of the most 
 prominent features of its early history ; for it was impossible 
 that its monarchy could preserve it from continual com- 
 motion and discord where so many adverse interests were 
 constantly coming into collision, and so many rival claims 
 were to be adjusted. The factions that were thus placed 
 in antagonism with each other fiirnished at all times 
 explosive materials enough to light up the conflagration of 
 war at any moment. The monarchy itself was also an 
 occasion of many violent contests ; and the kings of the 
 different provinces, claiming to have been descended from 
 the sons of Milesius, frequently enibroiled the nation in 
 war and calamities by their unceasing efforts to obtain the 
 sovereignty of the island, as often as the throne became 
 vacant by the death of the reigning monarch. 
 
 The constant necessity of appearing in arms, which this 
 state of things was calculated to induce, very naturally 
 engendered in the Irish an ardent desire for the glories of 
 the battlefield, as well as a considerable degree of skill in 
 the military tactics of the age. The crantubal or sling, the 
 sword, the javelin, and the broad-axe, were the principal 
 weapons which they employed against an enemy, and with 
 the use of which they appear to have become very familiar. 
 
 The military force Which they usually maintained has 
 been sometimes described by Irish writers with all the 
 enthusiasm that such a subject was calculated to inspiror 
 
 It was denominated Fionn Eirionnj or the Irish militia j 
 and had probably its name from the Fins, a northern tribe 
 of adventurers who had visited Ireland at a very early 
 period, and who are supposed to have been the originaj 
 
ORIOIN, ETC.^ OF TOD ETHlflO IRISH. 16 
 
 inhabitaBls of Scandinavia.* The bravery of these hardy 
 lBons of the north, as well as the duty imposed upon them 
 of guarding the coasts from their marauding countrymen^ 
 induced the Irish to apply the word Feae. to a military corps 
 of any description, though it might be altogether composed 
 of natives and without any connexion with the foreigners 
 to whom it was originally and exclusively applied. 
 
 The Irish militia were divided into legions, and the chief 
 commander of each province was denou* * nated Bi^'h Fionn^ 
 or king of the military, to whom they took an oath of 
 fidelity and obedience. Some of these troops were generally 
 employed in North Britain to assist the Picts, their allies ia 
 that country, in making inroads upon tho Romau provinces 
 in the southern division of the island; and they were hence 
 «tyled, by old writers, the Fene Albyn, or Albanian legions.t 
 
 The soldiers were supported by billeting them on the 
 country from November till Mayj and each house was 
 obliged to supply one of them with certain necessaries* 
 During the rest of the year they were employed in fishing 
 and hunting, or in findin- TTOvisions for themselves in some 
 other way consistent witu the dignity of the military pro 
 fession. Singular activity being required of eawh of them, 
 the exercise of hunting was one means of preserving them 
 in health and vigour,J as the red deer, then so numeroue 
 
 • These Scandinavian rovers were divided into various clans, 
 denominated Scritofins, Rerefins, Finwedi, Finwridi, and several, 
 others that retained the name of JVn as indicative of the conn- 
 try from which the/ had originally emigrated.— iSe« Ud, Mnt., 
 p. 16. 
 
 fO'Hal. Hist., Vol. n, B. VI, Chap. III. 
 
 t " No people in the world pursued the pleasures of the chaw 
 with so much avidity ad the Irl#h nation in general."--a'0>». 
 J>m0H,, p. Ills 
 
16 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 in the Irish mountains, were sufficiently large and fleet to 
 give full scope to all their energies. The rules which are 
 said to have been laid down for the regulation of this mili- 
 tary force may possibly have been invented by the bards in 
 more modern times, but doubtless they were well disciplined 
 according to the custom of the age, were good soldiers, 
 and in courage and activity were not inferior to the military 
 of any other nation in Europe at the time. 
 
 It is also stated, that, by the Milesian constitution, the 
 people were divided, at a very early period, into different 
 classes, distinguished by the number of colours in their 
 garments. The remains of this species of apparel are still 
 preserved in the plaid worn by their descendants in the 
 Highlands of North Britain. The law by which each grade 
 in society had its number of colours adjusted was called by 
 the Irish Ilbreachta, and has been observed from the most 
 remote antiquity by several of the oriental nations.* 
 
 Except the distinctive coloui;^ worn by these different 
 classes, there was a considerable similarity in dress between 
 the higher and lower ranks of society. Its fashion, as ap- 
 pears from the carvings on some of the tombs of ancient 
 warriors, was so admirably suited to the habits of a people 
 who were often in the battlefield, that it underwent very 
 little change during the lapse of ages, but was transmitted 
 without much variation by one generation to another. It 
 was such as admitted of great freedom of action on the part 
 of the wearer, as well as exhibited his appearance to the 
 greatest possible advantage. One portion of it was fitted 
 closely to the legs and thighs ; whilst the piece annexed to 
 
 * O'Hal. Hist., B, III, Chap. V. 
 
ORIGIN, ETC., OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. 17 
 
 it, called the Braccon,'^ was so contrived as to cover and 
 protect the breast, much better than any article of the kind 
 designed for the same use in modern times. The close 
 sleeves also gave the wearer the fall use of his arms without 
 any impediment ; and the Bared, or covering of the head, 
 was made of the same material, and rose conically like the 
 cap worn in more modern times by a grenadier. A wide 
 cloak, called a Falhmg, which was put on over the whole, 
 was also sometimes used as a bed, in the lomg, or field-tent, 
 which was pitched in the time of war, or in hunting expe- 
 ditions. 
 
 The Celtes, or woodlanders, as their name is supposed to 
 intimate,f generally took up their residence in forests, and 
 never made use of fortified towns for their defence, or even 
 of permanpnt edifices for their own accommodation. They 
 were in the habit, however, in Ireland of impaling occasion- 
 ally their Longpharts, or camps, to prevent surprise ; and 
 this temporary habitation they called a Dun. It was made 
 up of thick ditches of earth, impaled with wooden stakes, 
 and surrounded with a deep trench. The area within the 
 dun they raised high, that they might annoy an attacking 
 enemy with the greater advantage. These duns were in 
 general but small, and suited only for the defence of a few 
 
 *The word hrac, in Celtic, signifying anything speckled or 
 partly coloured, it is probable that this article of dress had its 
 name from the ornamental materials of which it was composed. 
 
 t The learned Joseph Mede takes the Celtes to have been a 
 colony of the Cimmerians who settled in ancient Gaul, and were 
 called by tho Greeks TaKarai^ which was contracted afterwards 
 into KeArat, and that hence the Celtes had their nam©.— <S^ce 
 MedfUs Work!^, p, 283, 
 
IS HISTOBY OF IRELAND. 
 
 persons, who might maintain theif post, or fly from it, as 
 occasion might require. The remains of many of these 
 forts are still to be seen in every part of tho island. The 
 peasantry ascribe them to their ancient invaders the Danes, 
 and by the superstitious they are supposed to bo the peouliaj 
 haunts of fairies. They furnish therefore many of tho 
 legendary traditions of the country with some of their most 
 prominent points of interest. 
 
 The wars which the Irish chieftains were continually 
 waging with each other, were happily of short duration, and 
 generally ended in one decisive engagement. During a 
 protracted campaign it frequently happens that more mei* 
 are sacrificed by disease than by the sword^ and that the. 
 laurel is as often withered on the hero's brow by the pesti- 
 lential blast of contagion, as torn from it by the nervous arm 
 of strength ; but this was seldom the case in Irish warfare. 
 Wo have instances, however, of some battles which lasted 
 several days before the victory was decided ; and, from tho 
 beginning to the end of the history of the nation, we have 
 «carcely one instance of any monarch surviving the loss of 
 his diadem.* 
 
 The characteristic temperament of the Irish, which haa 
 ever been considerably mercurial, impelled the different 
 parties in these wars to permit their passions to break forth 
 into full and terrific operation. All the enthusiasm of tba 
 Celtic race, on some occasions, rushed like an electric cur- 
 rent along the arteries and nerves of both princes and peo- 
 ple, and the most sanguinary contests were the necessary 
 result. The circumscribed limits of a province, or the ter- 
 
 *<yOoa. Dissert, oa Iri^ Hfetoyy. 
 
OBIOIN, ETC., OP THB ETHNIO IEI6H. 19 
 
 ritorial possessions of an inferior toparch, probably confined 
 the rage of the belligerent parties to a very contracted circle ,' 
 and hence, the enmity which was generated by the collision 
 of petty interests most frequently assumed the utmost viru- 
 lence of personal animosity. Accustomed to act under the 
 immediate impulse of their own wishes, some of the Irish, 
 princes, like the stubborn oak, which disdains to bend and is 
 dashed headlong to the ground by the impetuosity of the 
 storm, brought certain and immediate destruction upon 
 themselves; whilst a few others, possessing more policy and 
 discretion, contrived to accomplish their respective objects 
 by measures that were of a more political and less sangui- 
 nary nature. 
 
 But whilst the martial genius and institutions of the 
 ancient Irish make the most conspicuous figure in their 
 early history, their civil policy, as far as it can now be 
 known, is not without its share of interest and instruction. 
 It is to be regretted, however, that our knowledge of this 
 subject is necessarily so limited, as only a few fragments of 
 the Brehon laws, by which the people were governed, have 
 come down to our time ; and it is now impossible to deter- 
 mine, with any degree of certainty, the different periods at 
 which they were enacted. The person who administered 
 those laws was called a Breathamh, or Brehon. He sat on 
 tiie summit of a hill, or on its acclivity, to hear causes ; and 
 exercised a discretional power in his decisions on every sub- 
 ject. One of these ancient seats of judgment, occupied by 
 this functionary, is still to be seen on the hill of Kyle in 
 the Barony of Ossary and Queen's county. It is very near 
 the top of the hill, on the side next the east, is formed from 
 
20 HISTORY OF lEELAND. 
 
 the solid rock, and is commonly called by the peasantry 
 " the fairy chair." * 
 
 One remarkable law which the Brehons adopted in their 
 general practice, is that which relates to the eric, or fine, 
 which was to be exacted from criminals for different offen- 
 ces. By this law, which was similar to that which was 
 acted upon by the ancient Britons and Saxons f also, as 
 well as by various other nations of Europe, a composition 
 was accepted for every crime, except the forcible violation 
 of female chastity, or an a^ressive assault committed at 
 Tara, during the session of a general convention. 
 
 When murder or any uncommon outrage was committed, 
 the friends and relatives of the guilty party were taxed ; 
 but when the criminal was obscure or unable to pay the fine 
 required, it was raised upon the community at large. When 
 the prince himself, however, was the criminal the tax was 
 laid upon his dominions, inasmuch as he was considered the 
 father of his people, who were all therefore equally related 
 to him. 
 
 Of the commerce of Ireland, at this early period of its 
 history, it must be confessed that our information is very 
 imperfect. J But as we find that the various exactions 
 under the name of tribute, which one prince levied upon 
 the subjects of another, were always paid, either in cattle or 
 a certain weight of gold or silver, we have hence a strong 
 presumptive evidence that the ancient Irish had no peou- 
 
 *Led. Ant., p. 278. 
 
 t Vide Tacit. De Morib. Germ. 
 
 X From the testimony of Tacitus we learn that it was probably' 
 greater than that of the sister island. — ^^ Melius aditus portusque, 
 per conmercia et negociatores cognitt" — Vit Agric.^ Cap, XXIV, 
 
ORIGIN, ETC., OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. ^ 21 
 
 niary circulating medium, such as has been sometimes 
 ascribed to them. That the ports of Ireland were visited 
 at an early period by the Scandinavians for the purpose of 
 traffic, cannot be doubted ; but the gold and silver that these 
 northern traders gave to the natives for such commodities 
 as they purchased, were not coins, but rings, necklaces, and 
 other ornaments of a similar nature. Even the Roman 
 money acquired by the Irish in their predatory incursions 
 into Britain did not circulate as a medium of commerce,* 
 but was probably manufactured into various ornaments 
 then in use, and which have been frequently found in the 
 bogs in Ireland, inasmuch as no Roman coins have been 
 discovered in the island. 
 
 Little can be said respecting the agriculture of the coun- 
 try, in the earlier stages of its history ; but, from some traces 
 still remaining even in the greatest wilds,f it appears prob- 
 able that it was carried on to a more considerable extent 
 than is generally supposed. Whilst the wealth of the nation 
 consisted chiefly in numerous herds of cattle^ the progress 
 of industry also produced superfluities, and these the inhabi- 
 tants bartered for the commodities of the northern coun- 
 tries, as well as for those of Graul, which was possessed of 
 superior wealth. 
 
 Whilst we are thus able to take an imperfect view of some 
 of the national characteristics of the ancient Irish, we have 
 but little information respecting their moral and social 
 qualities in private life. An invincible courage, contempt 
 of death, and ardent feelings both of love and hatred, seem 
 to have been the distinguishing features of the national 
 character. 
 
 *See Led. Ant., pp. 111^ 132. 
 
 tO'Con. Dsisert. p. 125 ; O'Hal., Vol. I, p. 128. 
 
22- HISTORY OB- IRKLAlJi). 
 
 The importance of order in their connubial alliances 
 appears to have impressed the minds of the legislators of 
 the ancient Irish so powerfully, that they had a court set 
 apart for the proper adjustment of everything connected 
 with the marriage bond, in the great Aonach, or assembly of 
 the nation at Tara.* 
 
 It is manifest, however, that Polygamy, which was com- 
 mon in every heathen land, was sanctioned by the laws of 
 this court,f and that the thorough reformation of this abuse 
 of a divine ordinance was reserved for the influence of the 
 Christian religion. 
 
 But, notwithstanding the care taken by the legislature to 
 regulate the circumstances connected with the marriage 
 contract, illegitimate children enjoyed every rank and dig- 
 nity in the state to which they were entitled by blood,t 
 notwithstanding the criminality of their parents, or the con- 
 tempt shown by the latter for the established laws of society. 
 Marriage indeed appears to have become a subject of legis- 
 lation amongst the Ethnic Irish merely for the adjustment 
 of the personal interests of the contracting parties; but had 
 little eflfect upon their immediate issue, as it was deemed 
 unjust that the children should be visited with pains and 
 penalties, or even disabilities, for crimes in which they had 
 no actual participation. 
 
 The predilection which the Irish entertained for music 
 and poetry, above that which was evinced by most other 
 nations, is also universally acknowledged. The nervous, 
 pathetic, and figurative style of their language has been 
 
 * Ogyg* Domest., p. 304, 
 t O'Oon. Dissert., p. 121. 
 iJO'Hall., Vol, II, p, 171. 
 
oEiom» srcj. 05 the ethnic- irish. 23 
 
 often admired by some of the best judges that have referred 
 %o the subject ; and its singular adaptation to poetry remains- 
 a perpetual monument of the national taste; and has, na 
 doubt, contributed to the celebrity of the Irish bards in 
 pagan, as well as in Christian times. Every family of dis= 
 tinction retained a poet and a harper; and the poet's person 
 and residence were always esteemed sacred, in the midst of 
 all the turbulence which sometimes prevailed.* 
 
 One duty of the bard was to attend his patron in the 
 field of battle; to animate him during the engagement; and 
 to celebrate his exploits in poetic numbers. The ode com- 
 posed on such occasions was called Rosg-Catha^ or the eye 
 of battle. A great number of these odes are preserved in 
 ancient manuscripts, and are said to be not only beautiful, 
 but animating to the highest degree. The effect may be 
 easily conceived which they were calculated to produce on 
 the minds of ambitious and imperfectly civilized chieftains 
 when engaged with an enemy; and the veneration in which 
 this order of men were universally held by the people waa 
 almost without precedent in any other country. 
 
 Nor was it merely in the time of war that the serviced 
 of the bard were required by his patron, but the funeral 
 obsequies could not be properly performed without his aid. 
 It was the peculiar office of the bard to compose the funeral 
 dirge, which was chanted by a chorus of minstrels who were 
 retained for such services. The heroism of the departed, 
 and his supposed virtues, were celebrated in affecting strains; 
 whilst the solemnity of the procession to the last resting- 
 place of the defunct could not fail to produce an extensive 
 .effect upon the minds of the spectators. 
 
 ♦MaoPbers, Orit. Pissert., Pis, XIX, 
 
24 HISTORY OP IRDLAND. 
 
 No custom appears to have been more ancient than a 
 systematic wailing over the remains of the departed, as we 
 find it practised by the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the 
 Romans, in every stage of their history. But the Irish have 
 been more tenacious of the practice than any other people ; 
 and the female chorus is continued to the present day over 
 the dead ; but sometimes so debased by discordant tones, as 
 well as by the extemporaneous effusions of ignorant and 
 illiterate performers, that there is but Uttle similarity 
 between the present custom and the original institution. 
 
 The regulation of the different modes of interment 
 amongst the Irish is ascribed to the monarch Eochy X, sur- 
 named Of the Grave.^ He directed, it is said, that the 
 head be placed to the west, the feet to the east, and a leacht, 
 or monument of stone, raised over the whole. 
 
 Some of the nobility had graves dug, the bottom of which 
 was of smooth marble, the sides built with brick and cement, 
 in the form of a modern coffin, and finished with such inge- 
 nuity at the top, that a large stone fitted it so exactly as to 
 leave no room for the entrance of dust or any other adven- 
 titious substances. In this the corpse was laid, with his 
 armour on, and his sword by his side; and inscriptions 
 were raised round the moulding of the coffins, some of 
 which may be still seen, after the lapse of so many ages, 
 exhibiting, by the beauty of the letters, the artistic skill of 
 the sculptors of a period so remote. 
 
 * O'Hal., Vol. II, p. 168. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 Religion op the Ethnic Irish. 
 
 It is probable that the ancestors of the original inhabi- 
 tants of Ireland at first received' the principles of their 
 religion from the Phoenicians in Spain ; which may account 
 for the obvious orientalism of many of its peculiarities. 
 Subsequent colonists, however, from the north of Europe,* 
 may have introduced, at different times, customs amongst 
 them, which, having some affinity with those already preva- 
 lent in the island, were very easily engrafted on the existing 
 creed. 
 
 Descended as the original Irish were from that Celtic 
 stock, which, at a period not now reducible to any precise 
 point in chronology, supplied Gaul, Britain, and Spain with 
 their original population, it is to be inferred that the 
 religion which they brought into Ireland, and which went 
 by the general name of Druidism, was the same with that 
 which the cognate branches of the same race professed in 
 other parts of the west of Europe. 
 
 An ancient writer states that among the Gauls, three 
 classes were more particularly held in veneration, the Bards, 
 Vates^ and Druids.f The Bards were not properly a 
 
 * The explanation of many of our antiquities must depend upon 
 the customs and manners of the northern colonies baing well 
 understood. — Pownall's jirchaologia, Vol. 11^ p. 250. 
 
 t Strabo, Lib. IV. 
 
 C 
 
26 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 religious order, but were composers of heroic poems, cele- 
 brated the exploits of their patrons, made birthday odes, 
 and poured forth poetic lamentations over the manes of the 
 illustrious dead. The Vates assisted at the sacrifices, com- 
 posed sacred poems or hymns, played upon instruments of 
 music upon every solemn occasion, and were supposed to 
 predict future events. The Druids were the divines and 
 philosophers, and performed all the services of religion, 
 except those that were peculiar to the Vates. They occupied 
 the highest and most distinguished place amongst all the 
 Celtic tribes ; were chosen out of the best families; and the 
 honour of their birth, joined with that of their function, 
 procured for them the highest degree of popular veneration. 
 They are supposed to have derived their name from their 
 sylvan life, as well as from a superstitious veneration which 
 they showed for the oak, which in the ancient Celtic lan- 
 guage was called deru ; but as they were denominated in 
 Ireland Draithe, which signifies a soothsayer, or one who 
 predicts future events,* the name by which their order is 
 known may have originated in something different from 
 that which is so generally supposed. 
 
 Like the scribes among the Jews, they were commonly 
 arrayed in long garments, carried a wand in their hand as 
 a badge of their sacred ofl&ce, and wore a kind of ornament 
 enchased in gold about their necks, called the Druid's egg. 
 Their necks were likewise decorated with gold chains, and 
 their hands and arms with bracelets ; they wore their hair 
 very short and their beards remarkably long. 
 
 * In the Irish version of the Bible, the magicians of Egypt are 
 called "the Druids of Egypt" (see Exod. vii. 11) ; and the wise 
 men or magi from the east in Mat. ii. 1, are denominatedjj" the 
 Druids from the east." 
 
RELIGION OF THE ETHNIC lEISH. 27 
 
 The religion of every country must always have a consid- 
 erable influence on its government and political institu- 
 tions ; but that of the Celtic race, wherever they were found 
 to exist, constituted one of the most essential parts of their 
 national policy. The authority of the Druids amongst the 
 Gauls and Britons was almost unlimited. It was not merely 
 confined to the direction of religious duties, but extended 
 as well to all the civil and military affairs of the nation. 
 Their presence was necessary at the performance of every 
 religious rite;* and it is said that "frequently during hos- 
 tilities, when armies were approaching each other with 
 swords drawn and lances extended, these men, rushing 
 between them, put an end to their contentions, taming them 
 as they would tame wild beasts, "f 
 
 The Druids made religion also subservient to the main- 
 tenance of their power in every transaction both public and 
 private, so that nothing could be done without their sanc- 
 tion ; and so absolute was their authority, that magistrates 
 and kings were only the mere creatures and obsequious 
 instruments of their order. This irresponsible power they 
 exercised also in the courts of justice; and whoever refused 
 to submit to their decisions were excluded from the public 
 services, which, on account of the consequences that fol- 
 lowed it, was considered the greatest punishment that 
 could be inflicted.J 
 
 • 0»8. Comment., Lib. VI. 13. 
 
 t Diodorua Siculus, V. 31. 
 
 t Hsec poBQa apud eos est gravlssima, Quibus ita est interdic- 
 ium, ii numero impiorum ao sceleratorum habentur : lis omnea 
 decedunt, aditum eorum sermonemquo defugiunt, ne quid ex 
 contagione incommodS accipiant: neque iia potentibus jog 
 redditur, neque honos ullus communlcatur.— Cas. Comment. 
 Lib. VI. 13. 
 
28 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 But besides the Druids, who officiated in the public ser- 
 vices of religion, there existed amongst the Ethnic Irish 
 an order of religious females or Druidesses, who had devoted 
 themselves to a life of perpetual celibacy. This order of 
 vestals seems to have been common to all those nations 
 whose religion was of Celtic or Scytho-Celtic origin. In 
 the northern nations of Europe these religious females 
 were called AUnmce ; and it is worthy of remark, that in 
 Irish the word AUninaighe signifies a loise person, or one 
 acquainted with secrets and mysteries. 
 
 There was at Tara, in the county of Meath, an establish- 
 ment of these vestals, which was called Cluaim-Feart, or 
 the place of retirement until death ; because the inmates 
 never quitted the precincts of the house, from their first 
 reception. These virgins wore a particular kind of habit; 
 and the duty imposed upon them was to keep up constantly 
 the sacred fire of Bel, the supreme god of the country. 
 
 With a confidence peculiar to a certain class of antiqua- 
 rians, it has been frequently asserted that the Irish Druids 
 had no letters. But this opinion is very far from being the 
 result of either reason or an acquaintance with their his- 
 tory. It is true that none of the writings of the Druids of 
 any of the Celtic nations have survived the wreck of their 
 institutions, but this is no conclusive evidence that such 
 writings did not exist. The policy of the Romans induced 
 them to use every means in their power to obliterate any 
 vestio-e that might happen to remain of the former state of 
 those whom they had conquered, and this might account 
 for the absence of Druidical writings in Gaul and Britain. 
 With regard to the Irish priests of that order, we learn 
 from the uniform testimony of St. Patrick's biographers, 
 
RELIGION OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. 29 
 
 that the zeal of that missionary and his colleagues destroyed 
 about one hundred and eighty Bruidical tracts in one day. 
 
 Caesar, who wrote from his own knowledge of the Druids 
 of G-aul, expressly states that they not only possessed let- 
 ters, but that they employed them for every purpose both 
 public and private, except in recording their religious mys- 
 teries, which they deemed too sacred to be committed to 
 writing.* They also instructed, he says, their disciples in 
 the motion of the science of the stars and the magnitude of 
 the earth, which most manifestly implied that they possessed 
 some skill in astronomy. The same writer informs us, that 
 such of the Gauls as wished to study diligently the doctrines 
 of Druidism repaired to Britain for that purpose, which 
 country, he intimates, was the prime seat of this ancient 
 system of superstition. 
 
 As Ireland was styled by the ancient geographers, one 
 of the British isles,t it is highly probable that it was the 
 country to which the Gauls resorted to receive that instruc- 
 tion of which Caesar speaks. But whether this supposition 
 be well founded or not, the fact mentioned by this Roman 
 writer ought to be sufficient evidence that their instructors, 
 at least, could not have been ignorant of some kind of alpha- 
 betic writing. There is however no theory, how baseless 
 soever it may be, that the caprices of talent will not be able 
 to embellish, in order to accommodate the very best authen- 
 ticated facts to its own visionary speculations. 
 
 t Thus Ptolemy the geographer, The British Islands are two > 
 one called Albion, the other lerne. Eustatius, the Greek interpre- 
 ter of Dionysius, says, the7-e are two British Islands, Ouernia and 
 Allowin, or Birnia and Albion^ O'Hal. Vol. I, p. 22.— -See also 
 Camden^s Britannia, 
 
30 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 The distinguished place which the ancient Irish held for 
 learning and literary acquirements, immediately after the 
 introduction of Christianity amongst them, affords a strong 
 presumptive evidence that they were not altogether an illi- 
 terate people hefore. that important event. Besides, had 
 the use of letters been first introduced among them by 
 Christian missionaries, as some have supposed, it is plain 
 that it must have been those that were used by the Latins 
 which they taught them. But it is evident, that the order, 
 structure, number, and names of the Irish characters dif- 
 fered widely from those of the Roman alphabet. The Irish 
 letters were originally arranged in an order peculiar to them- 
 selves,* beginning with the consonants and having the 
 vowels placed at the end. They were but seventeen in 
 number, whilst the Roman alphabet contained twenty-four ; 
 and they were denominated in such a way as to prove their 
 want of affinity with those that the Latins had ib use in 
 any period of their history. 
 
 The Irish themselves, with real Celtic pertinacity, even 
 in writing Latin words, after the Roman alphabet had been 
 introduced among them, refused to employ any character 
 of that alphabet which was not to be found in their own 
 Beth-luis-nion. For instance, whenever the letter X oc- 
 oured, instead of using it they employed ^s or cs as a sub- 
 Btitute, for no other reason but because it did not exist in 
 their own primitive alphabet.t 
 
 Nor could it be reasonably supposed that the system of 
 
 • <* It follows therefore, that, as there was no prototype to copy 
 them from, they must be original."— Hams on Ware, Chap. III. 
 
 t See Literature of the Irish after their conversion to Chris- 
 tianity. Collect. No. 5. 
 
RELIGION OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. 31 
 
 philosophy which was taught by the Irish in the middle 
 ages, was introduced into their country by their first evan- 
 gelical instructors, as it was widely different from that which 
 was then prevalent in any of the Christian nations of Europe. 
 It is admitted that the Irish in the seventh and eighth 
 centuries maintained the doctrine of the plurality of worlds, 
 of the earth's rotundity, and consequently that every place 
 had its antipodes ; * and this system of philosophy, it is 
 well known, was pronounced to be heretical by the highest 
 dignitaries of the Latin church at the time. In fact so far 
 were the first preachers of Christianity in Ireland from 
 introducing such sentiments amongst their converts, that, 
 we are told, they destroyed all the Druidical writings on 
 physics and astronomy, as well as on religion, of which they 
 could get possession ; judging them to be repugnant to the 
 principles of that faith which it was the object of their 
 mission to propagate. 
 
 It is a well-ascertained fact, that during the existence of 
 Druidism the science of astronomy was cultivated with far 
 greater zeal in Ireland than in any other nation in the 
 western parts of the world. The Gauls had then no measure 
 for their annual festivals but the lunations or revolutions 
 of the moon ; but this was not the case with the Irish, as 
 by the intervention of intercalary days they made some 
 attempt, though now confessedly imperfect, at reconciling 
 the difference between the lunar and solar year. This is 
 evident from the order of their annual festivals, as well as 
 from the words in the Irish language signifying a year, the 
 zodiac, and the solstitial points.f Nothing therefore could 
 
 • See O'Hal., Vol. I, p. 93. 
 
 t The year was called by the Irish, Bliadhan, or Bel-am, which 
 
32 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 be more preposterous than to suppose that the Druids, who 
 were in that age the teachers of philosophy as well as of 
 religion, were destitute of letters or of alphabetic writing. 
 
 As men may be frequently observed to preserve the 
 original elements of their character amidst great external 
 changes, it is not diflScult to detect the Eastern origin of 
 many of the customs and institutions which existed for 
 so many ages amongst this ancient people. When their 
 religion is examined through that mist which must still con- 
 tinue to hang over institutions so remote, it will be found in 
 its main principles to have sprung from that region, but to 
 be deeply imbued with many of the superstitions of the 
 northern nations of Europe. The sun, the moon, and the 
 stars, or the host of heaven, were the principal objects of 
 their religious worship ; but, like other pagan nations, they 
 had besides these, inferior deities whose power was confined 
 to the mountain or valley, the river or lake, that was sup- 
 posed to be their peculiar domain. 
 
 The festival of Bel, or the Sun, called Bel-tinne, was 
 celebrated annually by fires and other public rejoicings. 
 The names of many places in Ireland, as must be known to 
 every one acquainted with Irish topography, still preserve 
 a memorial of this ancient system of superstition j as all the 
 compounds of Grian or oiBel are names of this description, 
 and remind us of the practice of the aborigines with respect 
 to the primary object of their religious worship. 
 
 signifies the circle of the sun. Ratha, which is Irish for a quarter 
 of a year, radically signifies the arch of a circle. The zodiac was 
 denominated Beach-Grian, or the revolution of the sun; and the 
 solstices were called Grianstad, or the aun'g itopping-places. — 
 Vide O^Brien sub vocibus. 
 
RELIGION OF tSB ETHNIC IRISH. 38 
 
 It was usual, at the festival of Bel, for the priests to light 
 up the holy fire, and all culinary fires were to be extin- 
 guished until this was kindled.* We have no means of 
 ascertaining in what manner the sacred fire was lighted in 
 Ireland ; but the Scandinavians and North Britons differed 
 in the mode in which it was excited. Among the latter, 
 planks were rubbed together until the friction caused them 
 to bla«e;f but the former employed flints, which are still to 
 to be found about the old altars in the northern countries 
 of Europe. 
 
 The adoration of fire seems to have been engendered by 
 the worship of the sun, and held a prominent place in the 
 religious system of the ancient Irish. It is probable that 
 those round-towers which are so numerous in Ireland, and 
 are to be found in every section of the island, were origi- 
 nally connected with this department of religious worship. 
 Their height varies from eighty to one hundred and twenty 
 feet, and they are uniformly of the same construction, hav- 
 ing a door about twelve or sixteen feet from the ground, 
 and four openings at the top directed to the cardinal points 
 of the heavens. They are all circular, and to a spectator, 
 •who enters one of them, it presents the appearance of a 
 huge gigantic chimney ; but their history stands so far back 
 within the thickening shades of antiquity that it is impos- 
 sible to determine at what period of time they were erected. 
 
 This subject has been so perplexed by the conflicting 
 speculations of modern antiquaries, that little room is left 
 for anything satisfactory upon it. That these towers were 
 built by the Danes in the ninth century, as some have 
 
 * Usser., p. 849 ; Walsh's Pros., p. 430. 
 
 t Martin's West. Islands, p. 113 ; Led. Ant., p. 387. 
 
34 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 asserted,* appears highly improbable. For had this been 
 the case, it is certain that some tradition of the fact would 
 have been handed down to posterity. But no such tradition 
 can be discovered by the microscopic eye of the most zealous 
 antiquarian. 
 
 There are some peculiarities, however, connected with 
 these buildings which are worthy of notice ; and which, 
 amidst the obscurity that confessedly surrounds them, might 
 have a tendency, if not to cast some light upon their origin 
 and real use, yet to prove that they could not have been 
 erected by the Scandinavian invaders who so long infested 
 the British islands. 
 
 In the first place, as far as Europe is concerned, they are 
 altogether peculiar to Ireland. But had they been the work 
 of the northern invaders of the island, this could not possibly 
 have been the case. There would have been some vestige of 
 such buildings either in Scandinavia itself, or in some of 
 those other countries which were infested by the Danes at the 
 same time ; but no such discovery has hitherto been made. 
 Besides, even in Ireland itself, in some of the principal 
 settlements of the Danes, these singular edifices are not to 
 be found ; whilst in other places that were never possessed 
 by the Northmen, they still stand as striking monuments of 
 a much more ancient age than that in which the Danish 
 invasion took place. 
 
 Another peculiarity of these towers is, that, however they 
 may differ in size and locality, they have uniformly the 
 same shape, and are obviously constructed on the same 
 principle. Similar buildings have been discovered by modern 
 
 *Led. Ant., pp. 284-300. 
 
RELIGION OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. 85 
 
 trarellers in Persia, India, and several other regions of the 
 east,* but are not to be found in any of the modern coun- 
 tries in Europe. 
 
 Without therefore entering into any of the various and 
 conflicting theories started by antiquarians on this subject, 
 the most probable conjecture is, that these towers were 
 appropriated by the Irish to some use similar to that of those 
 Persian temples in which the inextinguishable fire was pre- 
 served. This opinion will be found strengthened by observ- 
 ing, that, as the sacred fire was to be kept from every kind 
 of pollution of man and beast, the entrance to these towers 
 is raised to such a height as rendered the access to them 
 difficult, and secured them the more effectually from such 
 pollution as might arise from accident or any other cause. 
 
 It is admitted that some of the first Christian mission- 
 aries, in order to enlist the prejudices of their converts in 
 their fovour, generally converted those places which had 
 been esteemed holy in pagan times to the purposes of 
 religious worship under the gospel. Hence to these fire- 
 temples was subsequently appended a wooden church, and 
 the towers themselves were employed as belfries.f This will 
 also account for their having been called "ecclesiastical 
 towers," at a more recent period,J as well as for the crosses 
 upon the caps of many of them, and Christian symbols 
 in the body of the structure of others ; as these are mani- 
 
 • See Hanway's Travels into Persia, Vol. I, and Lord Valencia's 
 Voyages and Travels, Vol. II. 
 
 t In consequence of this accommodated use, the towers were 
 called in Irish, Cloch-theachs, or bell-houses ; doc or clog signify- 
 ing a bell, andtheack, a house.— PTa/^V* Pros., p. 417. 
 
 t Oambrens, Topog., p. 720. 
 
86 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 festly of a more modern date than the respective towers 
 themselves. 
 
 The adoration of fire gave rise to certain periodical puri- 
 fications, which were performed, during the annual festivals 
 of the Irish, by causing both men and cattle to pass between 
 two fires as a preservative against future accidents ; and this 
 custom is still observed by many of the lower classes of the 
 people as a means of guarding their cattle from witchcraft, 
 the influence of an evil eye, or the power which the fairies 
 are generally supposed to exercise. 
 
 Before the introduction of foreign usages into the ancient 
 religion of the Irish, their rites were comparatively simple 
 but after they had lost that simplicity, probably through 
 the influence of later colonists, human victims were offered 
 upon particular occasions.* These were generally criminals 
 that had been condemned to death by the Druids, at their 
 usual seat of judgment on mount Uisneach in the preceding 
 spring, or else some of their enemies that had been taken 
 captive in the time of war ; but when such could not be 
 had, the innocent, and even young children, were frequently 
 sacrificed in their place. 
 
 The plain of Breff'ni, which is in that district now called 
 the county of Leitrim, was named Magh-Sleacth, or the 
 field of slaughter^ because it was the scene of these horrors 
 at a very early period. In that place, during the festival 
 of Samhain, or the host of heaven, the same dreadful tribute 
 which some of the eastern nations are known to have paid 
 
 * Caesar informs us, that the ancient Gauls practiced human 
 sacrifices on this very remarkable principle, Quod^ pro vitd homi- 
 nis nisi vita hominis reddatur, non posse aliter deorum immortalium 
 numenplacari arbitrantur. — Comment. j Lib. VI, sect, 16. 
 
RELIGION OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. 37 
 
 to Moloch,* in sacrificing to him their first-born children, 
 was by the Irish offered up to their chief idol, called Crom- 
 Cruach, or black Crom. To this deity there were supposed 
 to be subordinate certain genii, or fairies, that were called 
 Sidhe, and were said to inhabit pleasant hills ; f and in the 
 same class a well known antiquarian places the Ban-sidhe 
 or Banshee, — "a young demon," he says, "supposed to 
 attend each family, and to give notice of the death of a 
 relation to persons at a distance.";]; 
 
 The frightful image of this monstrous divinity, whose 
 head was of gold, stood surrounded by twelve smaller idols,§ 
 representing, it is most probable, the twelve signs of the 
 zodiac ; as the connexion of the worship of the sun with 
 the science of astronomy was maintained in every country 
 in which that superstition prevailed. 
 
 Tighernmas, the monarch who erected this famous idol, 
 it is said, having been attending a sacrifice on the eve of 
 Samhain, was killed, with most of his attendants, by a stroke 
 of lightning, in a thunderstorm which occurred at the time. 
 
 Similar to the religious adoration of fire was that which 
 was generally paid to water. Besides the information 
 derived from traditional testimony, the sacred fountain and 
 holy well, which are still frequented in many parts of Ire- 
 land, bear ample testimony to this fact, and show with what 
 pertinacity the descendants of the Celtes still cling to their 
 ancient customs. We are told of a certain Druid, or magus j 
 
 •See Rollin's account of the Carthaginian Religion in his 
 Ancient History, Vol. II. 
 
 fLanigan's Eccles. His. of Ireland, Vol. I, Chap. V. 
 X Vallancey's Vind. of Ancient History. 
 § Jocelyn, Vit. S. Patricii, cap. 56. 
 
38 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 aa he is called, who regarded water alone aa an object of 
 religious worship, and considered fire to be an evil genius.* 
 Hence, it is added, that, at his own request, he was buried 
 under a stone in a particular well, in the county of Mayo, 
 which had been long venerated by the people and called by 
 them " the king of the waters." 
 
 The worship of the moon, under the sacred name of £e, 
 was nearly connected with that of the sun, and was prac- 
 tised to a similar extent amongst the ancient Irish. Golden 
 ornaments in the form of a crescent, that, with good reason, 
 are thought to have been employed in the worship of that 
 luminary, have been frequently found in the bogs in Ire- 
 land. On the sixth day of the moon the Druids were accus- 
 tomed to celebrate the ceremony of cropping the mistletoe ; 
 and as these ornaments are generally of such a size as to 
 represent the moon at that age, it is supposed that they 
 were carried by those priests in the performance of such 
 ceremonies as were usual on that occasion. 
 
 The mistletoe is a plant of the ^enua viscumj which grows 
 upon the oak, and is probably propagated by the agency of 
 birds. It produces a berry which contains a glutinous sub- 
 stance, and preternatural qualities were ascribed to the plant 
 by the Celtic tribes in general. It is probable that the cere- 
 mony of cropping this plant was conducted by the Irish 
 Druids in the same manner as it was by then: brethren in Gaul 
 and Britain, of which we have a circumstantial account 
 given us by Pliny in his Natural History.f Two white 
 bulls were taken, and their horns having been tied for the 
 
 •Lanigan's Eccles. His., Vol. I, Chap. V. 
 fPlin. Nat. Hist., XVI. 95. 
 
RELIGION OP THE ETHNIC IRISH. 39 
 
 first time, they were brought under the venerated oak on 
 which that plant grew. One of the Druids then climbed the 
 tree, and with a golden knife pruned off the plant, to receive 
 which another Druid was prepared at the foot of the tree 
 with a white woollen cloth. They then saofrificed the white 
 bulls, and entreated the gods for their heavenly benedic- 
 tion. While performing all these ceremonies, they wore 
 a white surplice, which they used in all the services of 
 religion. 
 
 From the sanctity of the oak, everything near which it 
 grew was esteemed holy; and therefore a multitude of holy 
 places, wells, lakes, caves, and groves, were to be found in 
 every part of the country. 
 
 In order to prevent any person from entering between 
 the trees of a consecrated grove, it was fenced round with 
 stones, and the passages which were left open were guarded 
 by some inferior Druids, lest any stranger should intrude 
 into their mysteries. These groves wore of different forms, 
 but generally quite circular. Within these circles were 
 several smaller ones, surrounded with large stones; and 
 near the centre of these smaller circles were stones of a 
 prodigious size, some of which were obviously altars, whilst 
 others may have answered the purpose of such ritual obser- 
 vances as were prescribed in their religious ceremonies. 
 Some of these stones are still remaining, not only in Ireland^ 
 but in England, Wales, and the island of Anglesey ; and 
 are of such an amazing magnitude, that it has been super- 
 stitiously thought that the demons who were supposed to 
 attend upon that manner of worship, must have assisted in 
 bringing and rearing them, as no mechanical power which 
 
40 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 was then in use is thought to have been equal to the accom- 
 plishment of the task.* 
 
 These monuments of antiquity, which are generally 
 denominated "Druidioal circles," were manifestly, in the 
 primary object of their erection, designed to be temples for 
 sacred uses. But from the light thrown upon this subject 
 by some eminent writers in modern times, it is plain that 
 they were used when necessary for civil, military, and judi- 
 cial purposes. We may however easily account for this by 
 remembering, that, under the ancient systems of religion, 
 the sacerdotal, legislative, and judicial functions were vested 
 in the same persons ; and that it was natural for the priests, 
 who were also the legislators and the judges, to avail them- 
 selves of the advantage of connecting and associating their 
 civil and judicial acts with such particular places as were 
 of all others deemed by the populace to be most holy.f 
 
 The Cromlechs are perhaps the most common of all Cel- 
 tic monuments, as they are to be found, not only in several 
 parts of Europe, but also in the east, and in the very region 
 of the Phoenicians themselves. They are large stones 
 placed in the fashion of a table, but in an inclining position, 
 generally upon three smaller ones, as it was found easier to 
 place and fix securely an incumbent weight on three sup- 
 porters than on four or more.J 
 
 * That these ponderous stones were brought from a great dis- 
 tance, how unaccountable soever it may appear, by human hands, 
 cannot be called in question. " The Goths," says Mallet, " whose 
 bodily strength was all their riches, showed their zeal by rolling 
 enormous rocks to the_ summits of hills." — Northern Antiquities. 
 
 t See Kitto's notes to his Hist, of Palest., Vol. I, pp. 404, 428. 
 
 % Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall. 
 
HELiGioN oi^ mi^ mnmc irish^ 41 
 
 The name of Cromlech signifies an inclining stone,^ 
 according to some British antiquarians, but has a different 
 meaning attached to it by the Irish.f Such tabular rocks 
 are sometimes found isolated, but more usually in the centre 
 of a Druidical circle, or in some way connected with it. 
 Some have thought them to be sepulchral monuments, be- 
 cause human remains, ashes, and bones have been frequently 
 found under them ; but as it is admitted that the Druids 
 were in the habit of offering human sacrifices, these discov- 
 eries might with as much propriety indicate that they 
 were altars, as that they were the ordinary receptacles of 
 the dead. Besides, as many of them stand on the solid and 
 unbroken rock, they must at once appear to be unsuited to 
 sepulchres. 
 
 The general use of sacred stones, in the ritual of the 
 Druidical religion, is one of those numerous indications 
 that we have of its eastern origin ; but the sepulchral monu- 
 ments of the Irish appear to have passed from that region 
 to them, not directly, like many of their other rites, but 
 through the northern nations of Europe.]: One use, how- 
 ever, that was made of particular stones was, that either at 
 them or on them the princes and chiefs of this race were 
 generally inaugurated. § Indeed a marked instance of this 
 
 * From the British words crum, bowed or inclined., and llech^ a 
 broad flat stone. 
 
 t See O'Connor's Dissertations on the Hist, of Ireland, p. 98. 
 
 t The mode of burial and the species of sepulchral monument 
 at New Grange may be traced through Denmark, Sweden, Kus- 
 Bia, Poland, and the Steppes of T&rt&ij.-^PownalVs jirchceologia^ 
 Vol. 11, p. 250. 
 
 § Spencer's View of Ireland. 
 
 D 
 
42 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 use of a stone is evinced in the case of that which was 
 called in Ireland Lia-fail, but which has been Latinized 
 into saxum fatale, or the st07ie of destiny ^^ which was once 
 held in such veneration by the Christian princes of the 
 reigning families, as well as by their pagan ancestors. Both 
 these classes of rulers seem to have considered it as the pal- 
 ladium of their empire, and to have supposed that their 
 dynasty was secure as long as they could keep possession of 
 it. This stone was probably kept at Tara, where the Irish 
 monarchs were elected and inaugurated. It was customary 
 with the candidates for the throne to sit over this oracle in 
 the sanctuary in which it was placed ; and by some contri- 
 vance of the Druids, such sounds were emitted as pro- 
 nounced the destiny of the person incumbent. 
 
 At what time this oracular relic was removed to Scotland 
 cannot now be determined with certainty. Mr. O'Flaherty 
 thought that it was sent thither by Hugh Finliath, the son- 
 in-law of Kenneth MacAlpine, to assure him of the subjection 
 of the PictSjf whom he had conquered some years before. 
 It was kept with the greatest veneration at the abbey of 
 Scone, the royal seat of the Pictish and subsequently of the 
 Scottish kings ; until Edward I of England had it removed, 
 in the year 1300, to Westminster, where, it is said, it still 
 lies under the coronation-chair. It is commonly called 
 Jacob's stone, from a notion that has prevailed that it was 
 a fragment of that which Jacob used as a pillow upon the 
 first night of his flight from Beersheba to Padanaram. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the Irish Druids are not supposed to 
 have possessed at any time that unlimited authority which 
 
 *See O'Connor's Dissert, on the History of Ireland, p. lOB. 
 jOgyg, p. 45 ; O'Cpn. Dissert, p. 104. 
 
RELIGION OF THE ETHNIC IRISH. 43 
 
 their brethren exercised amongst the Gauls, yet the progress 
 of events for ages had a tendency to increase their power 
 to such an extent, that some enlightened men of the first 
 rank sometimes endeavoured to check their encroacliments. 
 Conla, a brehon, in the province of Connaught, appeared a 
 zealous and persevering opponent of their superstitions, as 
 well as of that arbitrary power at which they were continu- 
 ally grasping. Cormac O'Cuinn also carried on a contro- 
 versy with them in favour of theism, or the unity of the 
 divine essence ; whilst several of ihejileas , taking part in 
 the contest, proposed new schemes of truth, and were equally 
 zealous for some favourite hypothesis. The great body of 
 the people, however, took no part in this polemical warfare ; 
 but the spirit of inquiry that was thereby engendered had 
 a good effect, as it prepai'ed men's minds for the reception 
 of the Gospel when it was afterwards preached to them by 
 Christian missionaries. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Irish Monarchy anterior to the mission of 
 St. Patrick. 
 
 It is more than probable that the leaders of some of the 
 first settlers in Ireland were two chieftains named Heber 
 and Heremon, of the family of a Spanish adventurer, whose 
 real name was Gollamh, but who was called by his descen- 
 dants Mile-Espagne, or the Spanish soldier, Latinized 
 afterwards into Milesius. 
 
 An indistinct tradition of the history of these chieftains, 
 had no doubt, reached the bards of later ages and formed 
 the groundwork of some of their fanciful amplifications. 
 But, admitting as we do, their real existence, in some age 
 too remote to come within the range of any authentic record, 
 we are altogether unable to determine the precise period of 
 their arrival on the Irish coasts. Amongst their succes- 
 sors, however, there were some great men, even in the 
 darkest periods of heathen superstition, whose actions and 
 institutions made a permanent impression on the afi'airs of 
 the nation, and whose foot-prints upon the sands of time 
 have been so obvious, that nei^r the lapse of ages, nor 
 the inauspicious circumstances under which their names 
 have been associated with fable, can bury their memory in 
 perpetual oblivion, or wholly extinguish the lustre which 
 their character appears to have shed upon the period in 
 which they lived, 
 
THE IKISH MONARCHY. 45 
 
 The most celebrated of the Irish kings, during this age 
 of darkness and uncertainty, was that monarch known by 
 the name of Ollamh Fodhla, or the Learned Doctor, under 
 whose administration the monarchy gained a considerable 
 degree of stability and consistency. Possessing no ordi- 
 nary talents for legislation, he is said to have summoned 
 the princes, the druids and barcTs, together with other 
 great men in his dominions, to meet him at Teamor,* 
 for the purpose of adopting • such measures as might con- 
 duce to the public good. This great Fes, or convention, 
 he rendered permanent ; and decreed that it should meet 
 triennially in the same place for the despatch of business. 
 He is also said to have been the founder of the Mur-Ollam- 
 han, or college of the learned, near his own residence at 
 Tara, and which was celebrated afterwards as the princi- 
 pal Druidic establishment for literary purposes. 
 
 A brilliant picture is given us by the bards of the solem- 
 nity and magnificence with which the great assembly of the 
 states was usually opened ; but the colouring is too ob- 
 viously taken from the usages of more modern times to 
 comport with that simplicity which might be expected in 
 the mere infancy of the social system. To this council an 
 appeal was made, when any chieftain or other person was 
 treated unjustly by his prince, or when any of the provin- 
 cial kings acted contrary to the laws, or oppressed a weaker 
 power. To Ollamh Fodhla is also attributed that ancient 
 
 * Teamor was the ancient name of Tara : which was derived 
 from Tea, a house, and mor^ signifying great or large. Proba- 
 bly in reference to the monarch's own residence, or from the 
 great hall called Moidh-Cuarta in which the triennial As was 
 nsually held. 
 
46 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 law of Ireland by which certain offices and professions 
 were rendered hereditary in particular families, and which 
 national usage continued in existence to a comparatively 
 recent period amongst the Irish people. 
 
 The uncertainty of ancient chronology leaves ample 
 scope for a wide difference of opinion respecting the time 
 when this monarch ascended the throne; * but the rea- 
 lity of his existence is fully attested by those institutions 
 of which he was the acknowledged founder. 
 
 The reign, however, of this prince was like the course 
 of a brilliant and rapid meteor which, shooting along the 
 face of the midnight sky, sheds around it a glorious light, 
 but is instantly swallowed up by the surrounding darkness. 
 We have a long succession of kings subsequently given us ; 
 however, we can learn very little of their history, but that 
 they all, with one or two exceptions, came to a premature 
 end. As no regard seems to have been paid to the insti- 
 tutions of that philosophic monarch who had laid such a 
 foundation for the future welfare of his people, history 
 appears to have failed with them, and so continued, till the 
 reign of Kimbaoth, the founder of the palace of Eamania, 
 who is the next object that stands out from the surround- 
 ing haze. Anxious to acquire celebrity and renown, this 
 prince is said to have raised a magnificent palace contiguous 
 
 * Some have fixed the time of Ollamh Fodhla's reign to 1300 
 years before the Christian era : Plowden to 950 : O'Halloran 
 to 922 : O'Flaherty to between TOO and 800 : O'Connor of Bale- 
 nagar to about 600 ; whilst More says, " that the date of the 
 dynasty itself, of which he was so distinguished an ornament, 
 cannot, at the utmost, be removed farther back than the second 
 century before our era." 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY, 47 
 
 to the site of the present city of Armagh, in his own here= 
 ditary province, from which his successors in Ulster were 
 called kings of Eamania ; and notfar from this edifice was 
 the house of Craobh-Ruadh, or the seat of the celebrated 
 knights of the Red Branch, the equestrian order of the 
 province.* 
 
 As the earlier portions of Irish history were delivered in 
 verse, it but naturally followed that the heroic and mar- 
 vellous had no small share in them, and truth frequently 
 suffered by the luxuriance of poetry. The splendour of 
 the palace of Eamania, and the exploits of the knights of 
 the Red Branch, have therefore been triumphantly sung 
 by many a bard, and the reign of Kimbaoth has been made 
 an acknowledged starting point for the senachies in making 
 their records of the transactions of those early times. 
 
 A similar picture is presented of the power both by sea 
 and land of Hugony More, who succeeded to the monar- 
 chy about twenty seven years after the death of Kimbaoth. 
 But without any reference to his military exploits, the civil 
 and political effects of his accession render his name as cele- 
 brated as that of any of his successors. He had sufficient 
 address, we are told, to prevail upon the provincial dynasts 
 to relinquish their right of succession to the monarchy, and 
 to take a solemn oath never to accept of a monarch but one 
 of his own family : and to secure the more efficiently the 
 accomplishment of his designs, he abolished the pentarchy, 
 parcelled out the whole island into twenty-five dynasties, 
 and thus weakened the undue preponderance of the provin- 
 cial kings, who had hitherto proved the most pertinacious 
 disturbers of the monarchy. 
 
 * O'Hal. Vol. ii, p. H. 
 
48 HISTORY OF IRELAND.- 
 
 These improvements made by Hugony in the constitu- 
 tion, how arbitrarily soever they may have been effected, 
 were attended with considerable advantage, and continued 
 in force for several generations. This form of government 
 however was at length reversed and the pentarchy restored 
 by Eochy Feyloch, from what motive we cannot ascertain 
 as no revolution was better calculated to narrow the base 
 of monarchical power and to strengthen that of the aristo- 
 cratic element. 
 
 Whatever might] have been the conduct of Conary the 
 First, had the Hugonian constitution been in force at the 
 time of his accession,* he confirmed the provincial esta- 
 blishment made by Eochy Feyloch ; and was in his gene- 
 ral character a very good and benevolent prince, but in 
 some things destitute of that wisdom which should adorn 
 the throne of a sovereign ruler. One of the first acts of 
 his reign, was an unjust and unexampled punishment in- 
 flicted on the people of Leinster for the murder of his 
 father. This was, as usual in such cases, an eric or fine 
 which was ordered to be paid annually from that province 
 at his palace, and hence we may infer that his father was 
 murdered by a party, and not killed in battle ; for in the 
 latter case no amercement of the kind could have been 
 exacted. In revenge, however, for this injustice and seve- 
 rity of the monarch, his palace at Tara was soon after 
 burned to the ground ; and notwithstanding he escaped 
 himself at the time, yet the indignation of the Lagenians 
 continued unappeased. It is probable therefore that by 
 this unfortunate tax his destruction was accelerated. For 
 a desperate band of malcontents whom he had banished 
 from the kingdom, aided by some Welshmen, and headed 
 
 * Mant. A. P. 2. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 49 
 
 by one Hangteil, arrived suddenly in Ireland, marclied 
 directly to the royal residence at Tara, put all the inmates 
 to the sword, and the monarch himself fell a victim to their 
 vengeance. 
 
 It is pleasing, however, after recording such an instance 
 of personal revenge, to be able to mark the progress of civi- 
 lization amongst the people, by a measure rendered neces- 
 sary through a flagrant abuse of power on the part of the 
 literary order, and which gave to the Irish the first rudi- 
 ments of that code of laws by which they were subse- 
 quently governed. 
 
 By the political constitution of the country, besides the 
 other privileges possessed by the fileas, or literary order, 
 they had been for ages the dispensers of laws, and the 
 whole nation had submitted to their decisions.* But at 
 a subsequent period, having greatly degenerated in their 
 judicial capacity, the indignation of the people was so far 
 roused against them in the first century, that they were 
 obliged to seek the protection of Concovar Mac Nessa, in 
 Ulster, as their order was threatened with total extermi- 
 nation. 
 
 Mac Nessa, whose heroic actions and patronage of learn- 
 ing made some amends to the public for great personal 
 failings, and who felt interested in the cause of the fileas, 
 not only afforded them a temporary protection, but em- 
 ployed the most eminent men he could procure to effect an 
 extensive reformation in their order. Fochern,f assisted 
 
 * Leland's Prelim. Disc. VIII. 
 
 t While sojourning at Eamania, Fochern wrote his Book 
 called Uraiceacht na Neagios, or " The precepts of the poets,'* 
 containing ont hundred kinds of poetical compositions. See 
 a Con. p. 132. 
 
50 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 by Neid and Atharne of Benhedar drew up a digest of the 
 laws * in such a manner as rendered the course of jus- 
 tice less obstructive afterwards, and the compilation of 
 which they were the authors got the name of Celestial Judg- 
 ments, as being supposed to proceed from a spirit of wis- 
 dom that must have been breathed from above.f By 
 this means the fileas recovered their reputation, and the 
 danger to which they had been exposed had a salutary 
 eflfect upon their subsequent conduct. 
 
 But no reform of this nature was sufficiently efficacious 
 to give peace and tranquillity to a nation so pregnant with 
 the seeds of strife and contention. A new series therefore 
 of bloodstained successions is presented by the Annalists, 
 and the usual factions and seditions which had so long pre- 
 vailed in the country, continued to harrass and distress the 
 inhabitants to an extensive degree. In this disordered 
 state of things, it is said that one of the petty princes of 
 Ireland, driven from his own country by some domestic 
 feud, addressed himself to Agricola the Roman general, 
 who was then in Britain, and encouraged him to make a 
 descent upon his countrymen, assuring him that a single 
 legion, with a few auxiliaries, would suffice to conquer and 
 retain the whole island.^ But Agricola from what mo- 
 
 * Ogygiap. 217. Cambrens. Evers. p. 157. 
 
 t Breatha Neimidh, the name given to this digest is rendered 
 by Mr. O'Reilly, "The Laws of the Nobles," instead of "Celes- 
 tial Judgments :" but in this he differs from every other autho- 
 rity upon the subject. See Ogyg. p. 217, O'Hal. Vol. II. Book 
 V. Chap. VI. Under the same title several codes were after- 
 wards drawn up at different times, even so late as the eighth 
 century. See O^Con. Dissert, p. 135. 
 
 I Tac. Vit. Agric. Cap. xxiv. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 51 
 
 tive we cannot say, failing to avail himself of this offer, 
 instead of dreading an invasion of his dominions by the 
 Romans, the Irish monarch Criomthan crossed the Chan- 
 nel to the assistance of the Picts, led an irruption into the 
 Roman settlements in Britain, and returned to his own 
 country laden with the spoils of his enemies.* 
 
 But notwithstanding the partial successes of some of the 
 Irish monarchs, the evils which necessarily resulted from 
 an elective monarchy were always sufficient to eclipse any 
 glory which they might have gained. Hitherto the people 
 were perfectly satisfied that no person had ever ascended the 
 sovereign throne but such as was ascertained to have sprung 
 from the royal blood of Milesius. But on the death of 
 Criomthan, a conspiracy was set on foot, and a monarch of 
 the Danaan race for the first time usurped the sovereignty. 
 
 The ambition of the Heremonians had long embroiled 
 the country in a continued series of wars and contentions ; 
 and had produced much dissatisfaction throughout the pro- 
 vinces. The civil contest which resulted from this state of 
 things, and which was carried on for several years, has 
 been denominated the Attacotic or plebeian war.f The 
 
 * That the Hibernian Scots took an active part in those 
 predatory incursions made at this time upon the Roman settle- 
 ments, we learn from Claudian in his poem written some cen- 
 turies afterwards. 
 
 Totam cum Scotus lernen 
 
 Movit et infesto spumavit remige Tethys. 
 
 t Attacots, who gave this name to the war, were a turbu- 
 lent and warlike Irish tribe, who afterwards settled in Britain, 
 and were taken into the service of the Romans at a subsequent 
 period. See Pinker. Enquiry^ p. iv. c. 2. 
 
52 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Damnonii perceiving that in every measure adopted by the 
 predominant party, their own ruin was intented, found it 
 expedient to league privately with the Belgas of Leinster ; 
 and both entered into a conspiracy to counteract the in- 
 fluence of their common oppressors, by wresting the sove- 
 reign authority out of their hands. The time selected for 
 the accomplishment of the design was when the princes 
 and great men of the kingdom were assembled at Tara for 
 the purpose of electing a successor to the deceased monarch. 
 Having therefore made every arrangement for carrying their 
 project into effect, the conspirators marched to Tara, slaugh- 
 tered the unsuspecting Milesian chiefs, together with their 
 followers, and proclaimed Carbry Catkean, their leader, 
 monarch of Ireland.* 
 
 The reign of this Damnonian prince, however, lasted 
 only four years : and, after his death, his followers elected 
 his son Moran to succeed him ; but this virtuous and un- 
 ambitious patriot refused the crown thus tendered to him ; 
 and employed all his influence so eff"ectually for the resto- 
 ration of the constitutional line, that Fearadach, the son of 
 Criomthan was called to the throne of his ancestors with- 
 out any opposition. 
 
 Nor were the exertions of Moran confined merely to the 
 restoration of the legitimate line of monarchs, but he ob- 
 tained a general amnesty for past political offences, and 
 was himself appointed chief brehon or judge, an office 
 which his virtues had so eminently qualified him to fill. 
 
 * Some have placed the Attacotic war in the reign of Fiacha, 
 but by far the most reliable authorities in the present connexion. 
 " The authority of Giolla Caomhairs," says O'Halloran, " fixes 
 me to this last opinion." Hist, Book v. Chap, iv. 
 
THE IKISH MONARCHY. 53 
 
 Such was the popular impression respecting this great man's 
 incorruptible integrity, that the collar which he wore around 
 his neck was believed to possess an extraordinary virtue ; 
 nnd so great is the pertinacity with which the Celtic race 
 cling to their ancient traditions, that it is still deemed a 
 very solemn oath to swear " By the collar of Moran." It 
 was worn by all his successors ; and the people were taught 
 to believe that whoever pronounced an unjust sentence 
 with this round his neck, was sure to be compressed by it, 
 in proportion to his departure from the principles of recti, 
 tude. It was also placed, it is said, about the necks of wit- 
 nesses in giving their evidence ; and, if so, it is probable 
 that the apprehension which they felt of its preternatural 
 effects was a powerful means of eliciting the truth.* 
 
 After the death of Fearadach, on whom the epithet of 
 Just was bestowed, contentions broke out again, which 
 issued in the assassination of his successor, and the usur- 
 pation of the monarchy by Elim, king of Ulster. The in- 
 surrection which brought about this revolution is that 
 which Irish historians have denominated the second Atta- 
 •otic or Plebeian war. The partizans, however, of Fiacha, 
 the deceased monarch, invited Tuathal, his son, who had 
 sought an asylum in North Britain on the death of his 
 father, to return to his native land ; assuring him of every 
 assistance to restore him to the thi'one of his ancestors. 
 Encouraged by this assurance, and supplied with a select 
 body of troops by his grandfather, the Pictish king, he 
 landed in Ireland, proceeded to Tara with such forces as 
 
 * A collar or breastplate of gold was found several years 
 ftgo in a bog ia the county of Limeriek, which General "V allancey 
 supposed to be that of Moran. Collect. Hibei\j No. 13. 
 
54 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 he had collected, and the chiefs of his house having as- 
 sembled at that place saluted him monarch with general 
 acclamation. 
 
 In the meantime, Elim, Avhen apprised of what had taken 
 place at Tara, collected an army to oppose his competitor ; 
 and the rival monarch having met at Aide, a battle was 
 fought, A. D. 130, which terminated the dispute, as Elim 
 was numbered amongst the slain. 
 
 Successful in this attempt against his antagonist, Tuathal, 
 having assembled a general convention of the estates at 
 Tara, procured the enactment of a law by which the suc- 
 cession to the crown was vested exclusively in his own 
 family. The readiness with which the .national council 
 recognised the revival of the Hugonian constitution evinces 
 how sensible they were of the evils attending on an elec- 
 tive form of government ; but the manners and customs of 
 the age would not admit of the establishment of a succession 
 that was purely hereditary. Unable to abolish entirely 
 the existing pentarchy, Tuathal had recourse to a measure 
 which had a tendency to augment the power and influence of 
 the monarchy, whilst it weakened those of the provincial kings. 
 From each of the provinces governed by . their* respective 
 dynasts he took a large district, and uniting these portions 
 together, formed a noble domain which was afterwards 
 called the " Mensal Lands of the Monarchs of Ireland."* 
 He is also said to have established in each of these a spe- 
 cial seat for the transaction of all affairs of importance 
 connected with the civil and religious policy of the nation. 
 
 * Fearon Buird Righ Erion. O'Hal. Vol. II. p. 220. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 55 
 
 In the temple of Tlachta, which he erected near Drogheda,* 
 and which was sacred to Samhain, every matter relative to 
 religion was regulated ; at Uisneach, a mountain in West- 
 meath, whatever regarded internal commerce ; at Taltion 
 matrimonial alliances and family economy : and at Tara, 
 the great Fes, or convention of the states, in which laws 
 were enacted, and every affair of national importance ex- 
 amined and determined. 
 
 To this monarch has also been attributed the important 
 arrangement of classifying the mechanics of the country 
 into companies, governed by their committees, very nearly 
 resembling the corporate institutions of modern burghs ; f 
 and he is said to have made several other regulations for 
 the improvement of his people, and the proper discharge 
 of the administration of justice : and, from the wise and 
 judicious measures which he adopted, as well as from his 
 having been the deliverer of the nation from a tyrannical 
 usurper, he got the name of Teachtmer, or the Acceptable. 
 But, Notwithstanding the possession of great abilities both 
 in a civil and military capacity, Tuathal was not secure 
 from those troubles which sometimes spring from causes 
 that are not suspected. Eochy, the king of Leinster, had 
 married his eldest daughter ; but, having conceived a crimi- 
 nal desire for the enjoyment of her sister also, he succeeded 
 in having his wishes gratified by practising the most heart- 
 less and unprincipled imposition on her father. Both the 
 ladies are said to have lost their lives by the transaction J 
 
 * " This sanctuary, in the county of East meath, is still remain- 
 ing, being the tumulus at New Grange near Drogheda, Beau 
 ford's Ancient Topography of Ireland." O'Connor's Dissert., p. 42 
 t Lives of Illustrious and Distinguished Irishmen. Edited bj 
 Mr. Wills, p. 39. 
 
56 lilSTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 and the matter was laid before the national estates by the 
 monarch. The affair however was ultimately arranged 
 between the parties, by the imposition upon the people of 
 Leinster of that famous tax, called the Boarian or Boro- 
 mean tribute, which was to be paid every second year, and 
 which brought so much evil upon the country for five suc- 
 ceeding centuries. 
 
 The reign of this monarch, which is said to have lasted 
 thirty-four years, was one of great national prosperity : but 
 he was slain by Mail, king of Ulster, who seized on the 
 vacant throne, notwithstanding the constitution which had 
 been so recently established. The usurper, however, did 
 not long enjoy the object of his ambition, as he lost both 
 his life and crown at the end of four years, when Feidhlim, 
 the son of the late monarch * succeeded to the throne, 
 and governed his people with wisdom and equity. 
 
 But the most remarkable prince of this period was Conn, 
 the son of Feidhlim, who was surnamed Cead-Catha, or of 
 the hundred battles, upon account of the numerous wars 
 in which he was engaged during his reign. One of the 
 most tedious and sanguinary contests which he carried on 
 was that which he had with Mogha-Nuagat, better known 
 by the name of Eogan. A dispute having arisen between 
 Eogan and some other princes about the throne of Munster^ 
 one of the latter, named Aongus, applied to the monarch for 
 assistance, which was readily granted. Opposed thus by a 
 formidable force Eogan was at length obliged to quit the 
 kingdom and to fly into Spain j but returning soon after 
 
 * " Tuathal's posterity reigned to the preaching of St. Patrick 
 through ten lineal descents. Each son reigned, and each was 
 interrupted in turn, by a rival, who obtained the supreme autho* 
 rity." a Con, Dissert.^ p, 189. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 57 
 
 Tvitli a number of foreigners, whom he had collected in his 
 -exile, he not only recovered Munster, but compelled Conn 
 to make a division of Ireland with him, known, in after ages, 
 by the names of Leath-Conn and Leath-Mogha. 
 
 Eogan, however, in less than a year, met with a signal 
 defeat from the monarch, on the plains of Margh-Lena, in 
 the King's County : and, in that engagement, it is said, he 
 fell with his body pierced in a hundred places. By his 
 death, the crown of Munster devolved upon Mac Niad, who 
 married his antagonist's daughter, and the latter acknow- 
 ledged the independence of Leath-Mogha in the most un- 
 qualified manner. 
 
 On the death of Conn, who was assassinated about two 
 years after the battle of Lena, he was succeeded by Conary 
 the second, a prince of the Degaid family of Munster, He 
 was married to Seraid, the second daughter of the late mo- 
 narch, and had by her three sons, called, by old writers* 
 Carbry Muse, Carbry Baisean, and Carbry Riada,* from 
 the different principalities which they respectively governed. 
 His reign, however, was of short duration, as he met the 
 fate of his predecessor, and the throne was occupied by Art, 
 the son of the late monarch Conn. 
 
 During the administration of Conary, and on the death 
 of Mac-Niad, the crown of Munster had devolved on OUiol 
 Olum, the son of Eogan, a prince so celebrated, for having 
 by his last will, been the founder of that singular law of 
 alternate succession which disturbed the southern provinces 
 for so many centuries. Notwithstanding his father had 
 
 * From Carbry Riada, the royal line of Scotland, and the 
 present royal family of England, are descended. See Dissert 
 pp. 205, 206. 
 
58 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 fallen by the sword of Conn, Olliol had married the daughter 
 of that famous warrior ; at which his brother Lugha Leagha 
 taking offence, he left the kingdom accompanied by Mac 
 Conn, the chief brehon of Munster ; but in a short time 
 returned with a number of Welshmen, headed by Beine 
 Briot their local chieftain, and being met by the monarch 
 at Muicruimhe, near Athonry, a battle ensued, ^n which 
 Art himself, the king of Connaught, and seven sons of Ol- 
 liol Olum fell in the encounter. By the issue of this battle, 
 Mac Conn found it easy to take possession of the vacant 
 throne ; but like most of the Irish kings, he did not enjoy 
 that dignity long, as he was stabbed in his chariot whilst 
 passing through Leinster to his palace at Taxa, and in- 
 stantly expired. 
 
 Cormac, the son of Art, who ascended the throne about 
 A. D. 254, was a prince of great abilities, not only as a 
 legislator, but as a philosopher of considerable acquire- 
 ments. The vivid halo which the bards and seiiachies have 
 cast around his character would seem to justify the most 
 glowing eulogies that have been passed upon him by some 
 modern writers.* He is said to have enlarged the great 
 hall called Moidh-Cuarta, and to have founded and endow- 
 ed three academies at Tar a : one in which the science of 
 war was taught : another for historical literature : and a 
 third for the cultivation of jurisprudence. But notwith- 
 standing the great mental powers possessed by this prince, 
 the same fatal propensity for the effusion of human blood, 
 that so signally marked the career of most of his prede- 
 cessors, was exhibited in his conduct towards some of his 
 subjects. His military operations were numerous, but they 
 
 * See O'Con. Dissert., p. 103. O'Hal. B. VI. Chap. ii. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 59 
 
 were generally successful. He sent a fleet, to the coast of 
 North Britain, which gained some successes in that quarter ; 
 and he gave the army of Munster many signal overthrows. 
 The kings of Connaught also, as well as those of Ulster, 
 gave him some trouble ; but he was able to repress their 
 insolence, and to convince them of the superiority of his 
 arms. 
 
 The close, however, of this monarch's reign, which lasted 
 twenty-five years, was marked by misfortunes of various 
 kinds and from different quarters. Instigated by evil coun- 
 sellors, he made war upon the king of Munster, because the 
 latter had refused the payment of an unjust tribute. But he 
 was defeated, and obliged to renounce all claims upon the 
 kings of Munster in future ; to make good to the people of that 
 province whatever losses they had sustained by his inva- 
 sion ; and to give hostages for the faithful p'erformance of 
 this covenant. 
 
 The reign of Cormac is rendered famous by the courage 
 and legislative wisdom of his illustrious son-in-law, Finn 
 Mac Cumhal, the general of the Irish militia ; and whose 
 great strength of body, unparalleled feats of arms, and pecu- 
 liar tact in training his followers, have been sung by many 
 a bard, and celebrated with such a degree of enthusiasm as 
 the subject was calculated to inspire. 
 
 Cumhal, the father of this famous general, was the son 
 of Trien-More, a descendant of the royal family of Leinster. 
 To him Finn succeeded in the command of the militia ; 
 and his wisdom and valour soon recommended him to the 
 attention of the monarch, who consulted him in all the 
 affairs of importance connected with his kingdom. But 
 from the early alliance of his history with poetry, his cha- 
 
60 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 racter lias been so much exaggerated by the bold and capri- 
 cious pen of fiction, that the reality of his very existence 
 has been sometimes called in question, and his name nearly 
 blotted out of the pages of history as a real personage. 
 
 Whether the monarch Cormac was a convert to the Chris- 
 tian faith or not is a matter that we are at this period 
 wholly unable to determine : but it is certain that he main- 
 tained the existence and superintendence of one uncreated, 
 eternal and omnipotent Being, in opposition to the popular 
 mythology of the time in which he lived. 
 
 It is stated, upon the best authority that we have for 
 the transactions of those early times * that during the 
 reign of this prince, he was engaged in no less than thirty 
 six battles. But having had the misfortune to lose one of 
 his eyes, in resisting a rebellious attack that was made on 
 his palace, this blemish by an ancient law of the kingdom 
 rendered him incapable of governing any longer; so that 
 he was obliged to abdicate the throne ; and his son, not 
 having arrived at the age of twenty-five, was ineligible to 
 succeed him. The estates therefore elected Eochy Gonnah, 
 the grandson of the monarch Fergus, to fill the vacant 
 throne. 
 
 The place of Cormac's retirement, after his resignation, 
 was a thatched cabin at Aide, or Kells, where he conti- 
 nued to support that dignity of character which he had 
 always evinced in a public capacity. Some of his writings 
 are still extant ; amongst which is a treatise for the use of 
 his son, f called an " Advice to a King," in which the 
 
 * Annals of Tigernach, 
 
 t " This work," says jO'Halloran, " has been preserved entire 
 in O'Duvegan's Book, a copy of which I have !" Hist. Book "VI. 
 Chap. ii. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. * 61 
 
 duty of a king is considered as a legislator, a soldier, a 
 statesman, and a scholar : and from its style, and the na- 
 ture of its composition, it bears evident marks of an age of 
 genuine simplicity. 
 
 A. D. 279. The accession of Carbry, surnamed Liflfey- 
 car, for whom this treatise is supposed to have been written, 
 was interrupted only one year : and in his reign the famous 
 battle of Grabhra was fought near Tara, with Moghcarb, 
 king of Leath Mogha. The object of this battle was pro- 
 bably the subjugation of the southern province to the power 
 of the monarch ; and as it was one of the most sanguinary 
 recorded in Irish history, it has been the subject of many 
 a romantic tale and poetical eflfusion at a subsequent period. 
 From -the colouring and incidents thus bestowed upon it by 
 the bards, together with additions, amendments, and un. 
 scupulous fabrications of his own, Macpherson was after- 
 wards able to raise that fabric of literary imposture which 
 is contained in the poems ascribed to Ossian. 
 
 The two Fathachs, grandsons of Mac Conn, who, after 
 the battle of Gabhra laid claim to a joint-monarchy, did 
 not enjoy that honor a single year; and Fiacha, called 
 Streabhthuine, the son of Carbry, succeeded to the sove- 
 reign throne. 
 
 Undismayed by the fate of several of his ancestors in 
 making similar attempts, this monarch was resolved, on the 
 death of Fearcorb the king of Leath Mogha, to subjugate 
 that province to his power and authority. For this pur" 
 pose he sent his son Muredach to invade Munster, whilst 
 he encamped himself with a body of reserves, on the plains 
 of Tara, prepared to afford his assistance when necessity 
 required. But his brother's sons, known by the name o^ 
 
62 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the three Collas, wishing to secure, if possible, the succes- 
 sion to themselves, and taking advantage of the state of 
 public affairs, collected a numerous band of followers, attack- 
 ed the monarchs 'forces suddenly in the field, and Fiacha 
 himself fell a victim to their treachery in the thirtieth 
 year of his reign. 
 
 As Muredach was absent in the south at the time of his 
 father's death, Colla Uas, the eldest of the brothers, suc- 
 ceeded in having himself seated on the sovereign throne. 
 But when the former was apprised of what had happened, he 
 immediately repaired to Tara in order to assert his right to 
 the monarchy. He found it, however, more prudent to 
 enter upon negociations with his rival ; and on condition of 
 his relinquishing every claim to the throne, the latter pro- 
 mised to assist him in seizing upon the crown of Connaught. 
 as the Danaan power was sinking apace in that province, 
 But, notwithstanding this design was carried into eJBfect, it 
 appears that about four years afterwards, the son of Fiacha 
 was called to the thi'one, whether by the death or expulsion 
 of the reigning monarch is uncertain. 
 
 Dreading the resentment of the new sovereign, the two 
 brothers of Colla Uas fled to the court of their uncle, the 
 king of the Picts ; and at length, through the influence of 
 that prince, a pardon was granted them by the Irish mo- 
 narch. Muredach, not only received them again graciously 
 at Tara, but as their former possessions had been alienated, 
 upon account of their rebellion, he laid a plan for their 
 acquisition of a considerable part of the province of Ulster. 
 Under pretence that the laws of hospitality had been vio- 
 lated by the grandfather of Fergus the king of Eamania 
 towards his own great-grandfather, Cormac, he furnished 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 63 
 
 the two brothers with an army to invade the northern pro- 
 vince which they entered ; slew Fergus the king of that 
 dynasty, the remains of the knights of the Red Branch, 
 and most of the great men of that ancient kingdom ; burned 
 the famous palace of Eamania, so celebrated for its heroic 
 princes during the lapse of ages ; and took possession of 
 that tract of land, which from this period was called Orgial, 
 and subsequently Uriel, comprehending the present coun- 
 ties of Louth, Monaghan, and Armagh. 
 
 After this act of violence and injustice we find Colbach, 
 a prince of the injured house of Eamania, taking ample 
 vengeance upon the real author of this catastrophe. He 
 not only defeated the monarch's army in the field, but 
 killed Muredach^ himself in single combat ; and having 
 usurped the sovereign authority, he was himself slain in an 
 engagement, before the close of the same year by the son of 
 his predecessor. 
 
 On the death of this Ultonian prince, Eochy, the son of 
 Muredach, who succeeded him, soon found himself engaged 
 with Eana, the king of Leinster, aided by Luagh of the 
 Bloody Hand, the king of southern Ireland, in a war which 
 was by no means successful on his part. And as each of 
 the posterity of Tuathal was regularly interrupted in his 
 accession to the throne by a rival claimant, this prince was 
 succeeded A. D. 360, by Criomthan, a most successful 
 plunderer of the Roman settlements in Britain. It is also 
 said that he carried his successes as far as Gaul ; but on 
 his return home, he was poisoned by his own sister, at 
 Sliabh Vidhe, near Limerick, and was succeeded, A. D. 
 375, by Niall the Qx^SLt, the youngest son of Eochy, the 
 ate monarch. 
 
M lilSTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 So early as the reign of the monarch Art, the first regu- 
 lar Irish settlement had been made in North Britain by 
 Carbry Riada. Before this period, in the frequent visits 
 of the Irish to that country, many of them had, at various 
 times, remained behind, from the close affinity between 
 them and the Picts ; but they had not been formed into 
 any regular or independent community. They had taken 
 up their residence there rather as individuals than as colon- 
 ists, until Carbry led a number of his followers thither, and 
 established a settlement in Argyleshire,* which is supposed 
 to have derived its name of Dalriada from him. 
 
 From the first establishment of this colony, it had gra- 
 dually increased, and, at the accession of Niall, had become 
 so powerful that the Picts themselves began to regard the 
 settlers with a jealous eye. Considering themselves the 
 original proprietors of the country, they resolved either to 
 expel the Irish from their possessions, or to reduce their 
 power, so as to oblige them to acknowledge themselves tri- 
 butaries to their more ancient neighbours. The Irish 
 colonists, however, had become too strong to submit to this 
 state of subordination ; and they applied to their own 
 monarch for assistance which he readily afforded them. 
 The Picts were therefore compelled to acknowledge the 
 Irish settlers as independent of them, and were obliged to 
 make a peaceable partition of the country, by which 
 Argyle, Cantire, and several other districts became the por- 
 tion of the colonists.f This colony, which was at first 
 
 * Bed. Hist. Eccles. Brit. Lib. 1. Cap. 1. 
 
 t For an account of the origin and progress of this colony, the 
 reader may consult CambrensiSj Cambderi, and other British 
 writers. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 65 
 
 confined to the north of Scotland, became at length so 
 powerful that eventually, under Kenneth Mac Alpine, in the 
 ninth century, it swallowed up the Pictish power and ex- 
 tended its dominion over the whole of North Britain. 
 
 Niall's reign was one of enterprise and heroic action. 
 Besides the aid he gave to the Irish colonists when 
 menaced by their Pictish neighbours, he subsequently 
 evinced that his ambition was not to be confined, like that 
 of his predecessors, within the circumscribed limits of pro- 
 vincial enterprise : for in the twelfth year of his reign he 
 led his troops into Gaul, and after distressing and plunder- 
 ing the inhabitants of that country, he carried away cap- 
 tive a numerous band of Gallic youth, amongst whom wa& 
 Succathus, so well known in Irish history afterwards by 
 the name of St. Patrick. His object in returning at this 
 time to his own country was to chastise some supposed in- 
 solence of Eochy, the provincial dynast of Leinster, whose 
 province he overran, levied the usual tribute upon his peo- 
 ple, and declared he would reduce the whole country to 
 ashes, should they refuse to deliver up their king into his 
 hands. Eochy, however, contrived to make his escape into 
 Scotland, and obtained an asylum with his kinsman 
 Gabhra, the chief of the Dalriada. 
 
 Having been thus driven from his native country, the 
 king of Leinster immediately began to form schemes of 
 revenge upon the Irish monarch. Nor was it long before 
 he had an opportunity of reducing to practice his contem- 
 plated project. Having been admitted as a volunteer to 
 follow his friend, who accompanied the monarch of Ireland 
 on another expedition into Gaul, he found the latter sit- 
 ting one day unattended on the banks of the river Loire, 
 
66 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 and stimulated by revenge, he discharged an arrow at him 
 from a thicket on the other side, which pierced him through 
 the heart, and he instantly expired. 
 
 Satisfied with the vengeance he had thus treacherously 
 taken, Eochy immediately returned to Ireland, took posses- 
 sion again of the throne of Leinster, and reigned in that 
 province for many years afterwards. 
 
 Niall, the late monarch, was also surnamed of the Nine 
 Hostages, because he is said to have detained so many at 
 Tara, from different parts of Ireland and North Britain at 
 the same time. His descendants were very numerous. 
 He had eight sons, from whom are descended many ancient 
 families of distinction in Ireland ; and as their posses- 
 sions lay partly in Ulster, and partly in Meath, they were 
 subsequently distinguished into the Northern and Southern 
 Hy-Nialls. 
 
 A. D. 406. The same unceasing hostilities towards the 
 inhabitants of South Britain, that had occupied so large 
 a portion of the late monarch's time and attention, conti- 
 nued to be practically pursued by Dathy, his nephew and 
 successor, during the whole of that period in which he sat 
 upon the sovereign throne. This prince, who was distin- 
 guished for the sprightliness and vivacity of his temper, as 
 well as for his strength and agility, not only made several 
 inroads upon the Bomish settlements in Britain, but pur- 
 sued the object of his resentment into Gaul, where he was 
 killed by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps. His 
 body was brought home by his followers, and buried in the 
 ancient cemetery of the Irish kings, called Koilig-na-Kiogh, 
 near Cruachain in the province of Connaught : and with 
 him ended the heathen monarchs of Ireland. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY. 67 
 
 In reviewing this part of the history of that ancient and 
 in many respects, peculiar people, the evils attendant upon 
 an elective form of government must be forcibly impressed 
 upon our minds. The permanent maintenance, however, 
 of the Irish monarchy, through so many ages of insubordi- 
 nation and blood, proves that it was not an institution 
 originating in the mere transient impulse of a fickle popu- 
 lace, but in a national conviction that it was the best 
 means of insuring a just equipoise amongst the subordinate 
 powers that formed so many distinct members of the Irish 
 commonwealth. During the reign of the last two heathen 
 monarchs we can perceive also that the line of isolation by 
 which the country was in a great measure shut out from the 
 rest of Europe, was broken through, and a communication 
 opened between it and the continent ; which, how inauspi- 
 cious soever it may appear in the commencement, became 
 afterwards so beneficial to the interests of religion, and pro- 
 duced those effects which may be perceived in the sub- 
 sequent part of Irish history. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Conversion or the Irish to Christianity. 
 
 By whom the gospel was first introduced into Ireland 
 cannot be determined with any degree of certainty ; but it 
 was most probably by -missionaries sent from the east.* In 
 the second and third centuries, Christianity had made a 
 considerable progress in the southern province of the island. 
 Numerous churches had been founded and schools esta- 
 blished in which not only the natives, but many foreigners 
 were instructed in sacred and polite letters, f 
 
 Amongst the numerous conjectures about the particular 
 places which respectively gave birth to some of those eminent 
 men that have distinguished themselves, either for good or 
 evil, in the church, it has been supposed by some that Pe- 
 lagius, the heresiarch, though generally reputed a British 
 monk, was a native of Ireland ;5; but, whatever truth there 
 
 * See Led. Ant., p. 359. — " The constant enmity," says O'Hal- 
 oran, "between this country and ancient Rome, prevented any 
 kind of friendly intercourse. This doctrine came not immedi- 
 ately from thence here, but from the churches of Asia ; and this 
 explains what TertuUian notes. — Britannarum inaccessa Rornanis 
 loca, Christo vero subdita — O'Hal., Book VII., Chap. I. 
 
 t Usser. Primord., p. 801. 
 
 t " Pelagius professione monachus, natione non Gallus Brito, 
 ut Danaeus putavit; nee Ango-Britannus, ut scripsit Balaeus, sed 
 Scotus."— Foss. Hist, Pelag.^ Lib 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH. 69 
 
 may be in this conjecture, there is no doubt that his disciple 
 Celestius, who is denominated by St. Jerome, " the leader 
 of the whole Pelagian army," * was an Irishman by birth, 
 and scarcely less celebrated than his preceptor for his great 
 abilities in theological disputation. Some of his letters to 
 his parents in Ireland are still extant, and one written at a 
 later period "on the knowledge of Divine Law," which is 
 said to be manifestly imbued with the heresy of his master.f 
 
 But notwithstanding Christianity had made some pro- 
 gress in Munster, and the Irish Church had produced Cat- 
 haldus, Kiaran, Ibar, Declan, and other divines of consi- 
 derable note, there had been no general ingathering of the 
 people to the Christian fold : and as the mission of Palla- 
 dius, who was sent by Celestine, the Bishop of Kome,J in 
 the year 431, and whose labours seem to have been con- 
 fined principally to that tract which now comprehends the 
 counties of Wexford and Wicklow, was a complete failure, 
 the honour of the general conversion of the people to the 
 Christian faith was reserved for St. Patrick, who has been 
 justly denominated "the Apostle of Ireland." 
 
 Different attempts have been made to account for the 
 failure of Palladius. Nennius observes, that no man can 
 receive anything upon earth, unless it be given him frofn 
 heaven. Probus remarks, the Irish were wild and barbar- 
 ous, and would not receive the doctrine of Palladius. 
 Joceline says, because they would not believe his preaching 
 
 * Jerome is sometimes coarse in his abuse of Celestins, and 
 with bitterness remarks that " he was made fat with Scotch flum- 
 mery." — Scotorum pultibus prcegravatus. Hier. PrcBfat., Lib. I, 
 
 t Gennad. Cap. 44. Cited by Dr. Ledwich, Ant. p. 358. 
 
 X Bed. Hist. Eccles., Lib. 1. Cap. 13. 
 
TO HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 but most obstinately opposed him, he departed from their 
 country. But these are all mere evasions of the truth. 
 The reason of his failure assigned by O'Halloran is proba- 
 bly the true one, when he says, " Palladius presumed too 
 much on his mission from Rome, and wanted to extort a 
 greater reverence and obedience from the Irish clergy than 
 they thought him entitled to."* He was, in fact, an in- 
 truder into a church which was complete and independent : 
 the people therefore would neither respect his foreign. com- 
 mission, nor obey an extra-national jurisdiction ; and this 
 is the tenor of the ecclesiastical history of the country till 
 the twelfth century. f 
 
 While St. Patrick was still alive, one of his intimate 
 friends, Fiech, Bishop of Sletty in the county of Carlow, 
 comprehended the most material events of his Life in an 
 Irish poem of thirty-four stanzas,^ which was translated 
 into Latin, and subsequently published with the Irish by 
 John Colgan. But as Fiech died before his patron him- 
 self, this poem is incomplete when viewed as a biography. 
 There are, however, three productions of St. Patrick's own 
 pen still extant ; and in one of these, which is called his 
 Confession, he gives some account of his travels, adventures, 
 and feelings under different circumstances. And from the 
 poem which we have already mentioned, as well as from 
 this document, together with the testimony of some early 
 writers, it is not difficult to collect a well-authenticated 
 statement respecting his missionary labours and subsequent 
 
 * O'Hal. Hist., Book VII. Chap. II. 
 
 t Ledwich's Antiquities. 
 
 X Ware. Archbishops of Armagh. St. Patrick 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH. 71 
 
 The place of the nativity, as well as the year of the birth 
 of this eminent missionary is uncertain : but it is most pro- 
 bable, from his own account,* that he was born in Armoric 
 Brittany, in the north-west of France, about the year of our 
 Lord 387, and was therefore of Celtic origin. He was the 
 son of Calphornius a deacon, and the grandson of Potitus 
 a priest ; and, we may add, that his original name was 
 Succathus, which, according to an ancient custom that was 
 sometimes followed, was changed to that of Magonius 
 when he first received holy orders, and to that of Patri- 
 cius when he was consecrated a Bishop. f The sanctity of 
 his aspect and the patrician dignity of his manners and ap- 
 pearance having suggested the name of Patricius to Ger- 
 manus, the Bishop by whom he was consecrated. 
 
 In the sixteenth year of his age, Succathus, as he was 
 then called, having been taken captive in one of the preda- 
 tory excursions of the Irish monarch upon the maritime 
 coasts of Gaul, was sold to a person named Milcho, an in- 
 habitant of that district now forming the county of An- 
 trim, in the province of Ulster. During the period of his 
 servitude, he was employed by his master in the care of 
 his sheep; and in his solitary rambles over the mountain 
 of Sliebh Mis he cultivated daily that spirit of devotion 
 for which he was so distinguished at a more mature age. 
 
 * His own words are, — " Patrem habui Calpharnium diaco- 
 num, filium quondam Potiti presbyteri, qui fuit in vico Bonavem 
 Tabernise : villulam Enon prope habuit, ubi capturam dedi." 
 Confessio.— It may be observed that Bonavem TabernicB was the 
 same town that has since been called Boulogne-sur-Mer, in Pi- 
 cardy. See Lan. Eccles. Hist. C. III. 
 
 t Lives of lUus. and Distin. Irishmen, p. 88. 
 
72 HISTOEY OF IRELAND. 
 
 His clear and scriptural account of his own feelings at this 
 time, and of his fervency and perseverance in prayer ; to- 
 gether with the strain of pure evangelical piety which runs 
 through the whole of his Narrative, affords incontestible 
 evidence, that it must have been written at a period of very 
 superior light and knowledge, and must have come from the 
 pen of a man who was habitually conversant with the 
 oracles of God. 
 
 In the seventh year after his capture, in consequence 
 of an old law of Ireland which limited a state of servitude 
 to that period,* he obtained his freedom ; and immediately 
 made his way to the sea-side that he might return to his 
 own country. But when he had arrived there, a serious 
 difficulty presented itself, as the master of the vessel in 
 which he intended to sail refused to take him on board, 
 because he was without money, and therefore unable to pay 
 for his passage.f Disappointed thus in his fondest hopes 
 and wishes, he went in search of a cottage where he might 
 remain till some other opportunity should present itself of 
 returning to his friends, and in the meantime he betook 
 himself to prayer, the usual means of his comfort and con- 
 solation : but while he was thus engaged, it is said, that the 
 sailors sent after him to effect his return, took him on 
 board, and immediately set sail for their destination.^ 
 
 After much difficulty and some additional misfortunes, 
 he at length joined the circle of those friends with whom 
 
 * " There seems to have been a law in Ireland, agreeable to 
 the institution of Moses, that a servant should be released the 
 seventh year." Ware. 
 
 t Prob. Vit. S. Patrick, Lib. 1. Cap. 4. 
 
 X Ware. Archbishops of Armagh. St. Patrick. 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH. 73 
 
 he had passed the morning of life : but his devotional habits 
 soon induced him to relinquish their society, and associate 
 himself with the inmates of a monastery founded at Tours, 
 by St. Martin, his maternal uncle. During his state of 
 religious seclusion in this place, he was surprised, he says, 
 one night in a dream, by the appearance of a messenger,* 
 who brought him a great number of letters, in one of which 
 he saw the words, " The Voice of the Irish," and at the 
 same moment he thought he heard the inhabitants near 
 the Western ocean crying out to him with one voice, 
 " to come and walk among them." 
 
 Impressed with a vivid recollection of this singular dream, 
 his resolution was soon formed, and it became the fixed 
 purpose of his mind to embrace the first opportunity of 
 going to assist in the conversion of- the Irish. By his 
 piety and zeal, as well as by his knowledge of the country 
 and language, he was eminently qualified for such an under- 
 taking : but for several years we can learn so little of his 
 history that we are unable to say what prevented him from 
 carrying into immediate effect the project which he had in 
 contemplation. The first matter of importance in which 
 we fin\d him engaged, was when he accompanied Germanus 
 and Lupus, two of the Bishops of Gaul, who were sent by 
 their brethren in that country into Britain for the purpose 
 of checking the growth of Pelagianism in the British 
 church. 
 
 In the course, however, of about thi'ee years afterwards 
 
 * Vidi in visu, nocte, virum venientem quasi de Hiberione cui 
 nomen Victoricius cum epigtulis innumerabilibus, et dedit mihi 
 unam ex illis, et legi principium epistulre continentem, Vox H;= 
 
 BERIONACDM.— C0n/C55. 
 
 p 
 
74 HISTORY OF IRELAIO). 
 
 he was consecrated to the episcopal office, at Ebaria,* by 
 Germanus, and proceeded on the mission that had occu- 
 pied his thoughts for so many years. He first landed at 
 a port in the territory of the Evoleni,t called Jubher-Dea, 
 now the port of Wicklow ; and notwithstanding the opposi- 
 tion of a chieftain in that place, named Nathi, one of the 
 persecutors of Palladius in the preceding year, he was the 
 honored instrument of the conversion of Sinell,]: a de- 
 scendant of Cormac, king of Leinster. 
 
 Having next visited Rath-Jubher, near the mouth of the 
 river Bray, he sailed along the coast till he reached an is- 
 land contiguous to the county of Dublin, since called Inis- 
 Phadruig; but having been repelled by some of the natives, 
 he proceeded northward, and, with his associates, again dis- 
 embarked at a landing place near Strangford in the county 
 of Down. The appearance of so large a company, and all 
 apparently foreigners, as they proceeded from the vessel, 
 naturally alarmed the inhabitants for their own safety ; and 
 they instantly concluded that they were a gang of pirates 
 who had entered the country for the purpose of plunder- 
 ing the neighbourhood and carrying off their booty to the 
 ship* Intelligence, therefore, having been speedily con- 
 
 * It has been asserted, without any sufficient authority, that 
 St. Patrick was consecrated by the Bishop of Rome who had 
 sent Palladius into Ireland : but as the latter died on the 15th 
 of December, 431, and Celestine on the 6th of April following, 
 it is not probable that this should have occurred in the short 
 space of time which elapsed between these two periods. See 
 Lives, Ac, p. 89. 
 
 t Prob. Lib. 1. Cap. 27. 
 
 t Usser. Primord. p. 846, 
 
CONVEBSION OF THE IRISH. 75 
 
 ▼eyed to Dicho, the chieftain of that district, he hastened 
 to the spot with a number of armed followers, in order to 
 oppose the aggression of the foreigners. But finding them 
 unarmed, and being struck with the venerable appearance 
 of the Bishop, his indignation was turned into curiosity, 
 and he enquired for what purpose they had entered the 
 country. As soon as St. Patrick had informed him of 
 his great design, and had obtained permission to explain 
 the nature and principles of Christianity, he preached the 
 gospel to the people in their own language, in such a forci- 
 ble and zealous manner, that not only numbers of the in- 
 habitants of the district, but the chieftain himself and all 
 his family were converted to the Christian faith, and received 
 baptism at the hands of the missionaries. It is also said, 
 that in gratitude for the mercy he had received, Dicho 
 dedicated to God the ground upon which this first sermon 
 was preached ; and that the house in which divine service 
 was celebrated on this occasion was afterwards called Sahhul 
 Phadmig or Patrick's Barn.^ 
 
 The scenes of former years were no doubt revivified in 
 the mind of the Bishop by his visit to the northern pro- 
 vince ; and it was quite natural for him, while he was in 
 the vicinity, to feel considerable anxiety about his former 
 master, and to make some attempt to rescue him from the 
 idolatry and superstition in which he knew he had been 
 educated : but his pious intention was most painfully dis- 
 appointed. His former owner having heard of his arrival 
 and of his design respecting himself, refused to see him or 
 to listen to his instructions, and he was therefore obliged 
 to relinquish his benevolent purpose. 
 
 * W.are. Archbishops of Armagh. St. Patrick. 
 
76 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Some time after the arrival of the missionaries, a great 
 national convention was about to be held at Tara, and St. 
 Patrick was resolved to attend that meeting that he might 
 have an opportunity of preaching to the monarch and 
 assembled chieftains the unsearchable riches of Christ. 
 Having therefore set out for this purpose, he arrived at the 
 mouth of the Boyne, where he left his boat, and proceeded 
 with his associates to the plain of Breg, contiguous to the 
 site of the ancient city of Tara. Here they lighted a very 
 large fire at the place where they had taken up their tem- 
 porary residence, either forgetting that it was the eve of 
 one of the great Druidical festivals, and therefore unlawful 
 to kindle a fire except from that which was lighted by the 
 priests ; or else being resolved to break through that super- 
 stitious custom, and to show their abhorrence of the sys- 
 tem of idolatry with which it was connected. 
 
 No sooner was this fire kindled than it was seen from 
 the heights of Tara, notwithstanding the intervening dis- 
 tance was about eight miles* and the Druids enraged at 
 the contempt thus poured upon their authority, preferred 
 their complaint to the monarch, before whom St. Patrick 
 was summoned to appear the next day. To this summons 
 he gladly responded — appeared before the convention — 
 and when questioned by Laogary, the king, he replied, 
 " that he had entered the island under the banner of love 
 and universal benevolence, to raise him up a new people, 
 through a warfare which was purely spiritual ; and that 
 he had no other object in view, but to render his people 
 better men and better subjects."t 
 
 * Ware ut supra. 
 
 t M. S.— Life of St. Patrick, quoted by Mr. O'Connor, Dis^ 
 sert., p. 196. 
 
COmnERSION OP THE IRISH. 7T 
 
 Laogary, who knew that he had numerous enemies 
 among his nominal subjects, was probably pleased to hear 
 this, and therefore the more readily gave permission to the 
 missionaries to explain and defend their doctrines. It is 
 not certain, however, that he was himself among the con- 
 verts made on this occasion, but it is said, that his two 
 daughters and a vast number of other persons enrolled 
 themselves at that time among the disciples of Christ. 
 
 Encouraged by their success and stimulated by the 
 ardour of their zeal, like rivers that wind and wander in 
 their course in order to diffuse their beneficial influence 
 the more extensively, the missionaries continued their pro- 
 gress to other parts of the island ; and having left Meath, 
 they proceeded westward, St. Patrick being desirous of vis- 
 iting the wood of Fochlut in the county of Mayo,^ bor- 
 dering on the western ocean from which he had heard, 
 several years before, so many voices in his dream. In his 
 journey thither, however, Ije deviated from his direct route, 
 that he might visit that place of horror in the county of 
 Leitrim, where, for many centuries, the great idol, called 
 Crom-cruach, stood. On this theatre of a sanguinary 
 superstition the missionaries instantly unfurled the banner 
 of the Prince of Peace : and such was their success that 
 they had the satisfaction of witnessing not only the sub- 
 version of the idolatrous system of worship practised at 
 that place, but the total destruction of the idol itself, and 
 the erection of a Christian church in its stead. 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the success which at- 
 
 * " The wood of Fochlut stood in the territory of Tir-Amal- 
 gaid, now the barony of Tirawley, west of the river May, which 
 empties itself into the sea at Killala." Ware. 
 
t8 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 tended the efforts of these eminent men as they proceeded 
 in their work and labour of love. There were also many 
 singular coincidences which marked their progress that can- 
 not fail to be recognized as so many signal proofs of the 
 special interference of Providence in their behalf. 
 
 Having arrived contiguous to the wood of Fochlut, at a 
 time when a vast number of people were assembled to sa- 
 lute a new chieftain of that territory, St. Patrick preached 
 to the assembled multitude ; and it is said that in a short 
 time he baptize^ " many thousands,"* including the new 
 toparch and his brothers, who all became decided and zeal- 
 ous advocates of the holy cause in which he was engaged. 
 
 For the space of sixteen years, this indefatigable man, 
 with his companions, was employed in the northern and 
 western parts of the island, before he made any attempt to 
 visit the southern province. The bishops of Munster, 
 when they had been previously visited by Palladius, who, 
 in addition to his ignorance of 'their language, very pos- 
 sibly claimed some kind of jurisdiction over them, declared 
 most unequivocally to that missionary, that their church 
 had never been subject to any foreign or extra-national au- 
 thority, and that therefore they could not suffer any foreigner 
 to deprive them of their rights. f But notwithstanding 
 the existence of this church, which had produced many 
 holy and eminent men, there had been no general conver- 
 sion of the people to the Christian faith, even in that pro- 
 vince ; and St. Patrick having at length arrived in Mun- 
 ster, the same success attended his ministry as had been 
 witnessed in the north. Numbers were convinced of the 
 
 * S. Patric. Confess, p. 19. 
 t Usser. Primord, p. 801. 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH. 79 
 
 truth under his preaching, including amongst them all the 
 chief men of the province. Besides, what was of essential 
 moment to the welfare of the rising church, a perfect 
 understanding was brought about between the immigrant 
 missionaries and the bishops who had already jurisdiction 
 in that part of the island.* 
 
 Having spent seven years in the south of Ireland, he 
 proceeded, about the year 455, to the province of Leinster, 
 and in this tour visited the city of Dublin, then commonly 
 called Bealiacliath, where by his preaching, Alphin, the 
 king of that territory, was converted to the Christian faith, 
 and was baptized with all his people, in a fountain near 
 the present site of St. Patrick's cathedral. 
 
 It was probably after his southern tour that he formed 
 the design of establishing an episcopal see at Armagh, the 
 land of that territory having been granted him by the pro- 
 prietor. Here, it is said, he laid out the site of a cityf — 
 built a cathedral — established a school — and founded that 
 Diocese which, in process of time, became the Metropolitan 
 see of the whole island. 
 
 From this period he spent the greater part of his time 
 between Armagh and Sabhul in the county of Antrim, 
 where he had preached his first sermon in Ulster; and 
 which appears to have been ever after his favourite retreat. 
 At Armagh he held several synods of the clergy in 
 which canons and constitutions were passed for the go- 
 vernment of the Church; To these were added afterwards 
 several others that were decreed at a later date, but there 
 
 * Han. Chron, p. 35. O'Hal. Hist., Book VII., C 2. 
 t Prob. Vit. S. Patric, Lib, II, Cap. 7. 
 
80 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 can be no reasonable doubt of the authenticity of those 
 that are ascribed to St. Patrick himself. 
 
 It was during this state of comparative retirement, that 
 lie is supposed to have written his Confession or Narrative, 
 as a memorial of the singular success with which Grod had 
 blessed him. It is written in a homely and characteristic 
 style in the Latin tongue, for which he apologizes, as he 
 had been in the habit of speaking only in Irish for so many 
 years. He seems to have had some presentiment of his 
 death while engaged in this work: and he accordingly 
 closed his apostolical labours at Sabhul, as he died on the 
 17th of March A.D. 465, in the seventy-eighth year of his 
 age and thirty-third of his ministry in Ireland. 
 
 As soon as it was known that the great apostle of Ire- 
 land was dead there was a general concourse of the Bishops 
 and clergy at Sabhul to assist at his funeral, and to evince 
 their affectionate respect for their venerable father in 
 Christ. His mortal remains were interred at Downpatrick,^ 
 with all due solemnity, where he rests from his labours 
 while his works follow him. 
 
 His character is best exhibited by the salutary revolution 
 which he was enabled to accomplish in the religion of the 
 nation. To have been the instrument employed by the 
 great Head of the Church for the conversion of almost a 
 nation of. pagans to the faith of the Redeemer, and to have 
 established a Church amongst his converts upon so firm a 
 basis, were achievements incomparably more honorable than 
 to have conquered mighty nations, and to have established 
 
 * " All the early Irish writers ajBfirm that St. Patrick was 
 buried at Down, iu Ireland ; and it is from such authorities that 
 the truth must be drawn." — Ware. 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH. 81 
 
 the most powerful dynasty that ever existed in the present 
 world. There can be no doubt that ministry of men 
 whose natural talents could not be said to rise above medio- 
 crity, has been frequently blessed and made the instrument 
 of extensive good. But still their success has not been of 
 that particular kind which attended the preaching of St. 
 Patrick. Whenever he obtained a hearing, whether before 
 rulers or their subjects, he seldom failed to convince his 
 auditors of the truth and importance of his doctrine, and 
 the natural inference is that he was a powerful and per- 
 suasive preacher.* It is also probable that he possessed a 
 happy talent of illustrating his subjects by selections from 
 the kingdom of nature. It is said, that in attempting to 
 simplify the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity to his un- 
 taught auditors, he plucked up a sprig of the trefoil, or 
 shamrock, and showed them from its three expanded leaves 
 growing out of one stem, and partaking of the same nature, 
 how three subsistences in one essence exist in the God- 
 head ; and hence his followers very naturally adopted the 
 shamrock as their national emblem, in commemoration of 
 the prime article of the faith in which he had instructed 
 them. 
 
 No individual has suffered more in his posthumous 
 reputation than St. Patrick has done, or has been more 
 nearly reduced to a mere fictitious personage by the puerile 
 
 * " If we ■n'ould judge by the writings ascribed to this mis- 
 sionary, he -was vastly inferior to his cotemporaries, Hierome the 
 monk, Ambrose of Milan, and Augustine of Hippo ; but to judge 
 of him by his success in preaching, he excelled the three, and 
 appears to be as successful a missionary as lived since the apos- 
 tolic age.' — O'Con. Dis.,p. 195, 
 
82 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 inventions of his mediaeval biographers. The writers of 
 his Ufe were so numerous in the middle ages, that when 
 Joceline, the monk, in the twelfth century, set about the 
 task of giving to the world an additional biography of this 
 distinguished missionary, he found that no less than sixty- 
 six writers had preceded him in a similar undertaking* 
 Had all their productions survived the wreck of the north- 
 ern invasion, it would probably be found, that imagination 
 had employed her creative powers in every successive bio- 
 .graphy, and that fresh miracles were to be found recorded 
 in each of them as having been wrought by the superna- 
 tural powers with which he was supposed to have been 
 invested. 
 
 Joceline informs us, that from four of the Lives of St. 
 Patrick which had not been destroyed by the Danes, he 
 selected such facts as he could find deserving of credit ;f 
 and hence we may fairly conclude, he rejected such state- 
 ments as he deemed to be unworthy of belief. But even 
 aft€r such an expurgatorial process, we are gravely in- 
 formed by this monk, that St. Patrick, while an infant, 
 brought a new river from the earth, which gave sight to 
 the blind — that he produced fire from ice — that he raised 
 his nurse from the dead — that he cast a devil out of a 
 heifer — and performed a variety of other miracles, equally 
 surprising, and some of them as useless as they were ex- 
 travagant. 
 
 But in adverting to the miracles which this writer has 
 professed to consider credible, we ought not to omit one of 
 
 * Vit. S. Patric. p. 81. - 
 
 t Quaecumque fide digna reperire potui. Vit. S. Pat, 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH. 88 
 
 the most popular of the wonders which he has recorded, 
 and to which the physical properties of the soil and climate 
 of Ireland have contributed to give a degree of credit, 
 which the other miracles, ascribed to St. Patrick cannot 
 claim. 
 
 It is stated, that in the season of Lent, he was accus- 
 tomed to spend much of his time, upon the solitary sum- 
 mit of a mountain in the county of Mayo, which is still 
 known by the name of Croagh Patrick: and that on one 
 occasion, as a boon to his converts, he collected all the vipers, 
 serpents, snakes, and venomous reptiles in the Island, and 
 by an authoritative mandate drove them all headlong into 
 the Atlantic Ocean.* But unfortunately for the credit 
 of this popular tradition, the ancient geographers, who 
 wrote about two hundred years before the birth of St. 
 Patrick, mention as a natural curiosity, that no snake or 
 reptile of the serpent kind had any existence at that time 
 in Ireland. So that to what cause soever this exemption 
 may be attributed, there is no ground for ascribing it to 
 the supernatural powers supposed to have been possessed 
 by the Irish Apostle. 
 
 Such are a few specimens of the monstrous fictions with 
 which the writers of the dark ages have interlarded the 
 biography of this excellent missionary : but to the Christ- 
 ian who peruses his history impartially, it must be evident 
 that the work which he accomplished afforded a more sig- 
 nal proof that the hand of Grod was. with him, than all the 
 miraculous powers ascribed to him would have done, had 
 he really exercised them in the way that some of his 
 biographers have stated. 
 
 * Joceline Vit. S. Patric. Cap. 170. 
 
84 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 The anile credulity of the mediaeval writers, in giving 
 currency to the legends recorded of St. Patrick, induced 
 Dr. Ledwich and some others of very inferior note, to 
 contend for the non-existence of St. Patrick, and to ascribe 
 the whole of his history to the imaginative qualities of the 
 monks of the middle ages. But a little consideration, if 
 accompanied with the slightest degree of candour, will soon 
 dissipate the mists of this historical scepticism, and place 
 the reality of his history in its proper light. 
 
 Early in the seventoenth century. Dr. Ryves, one of the 
 Masters in Chancery, having had occasion to consider 
 minutely the ancient history of the Irish Church, first sug- 
 gested the idea of the non-existence of St. Patrick, and 
 questioned the account of the conversion of the Irish peo- 
 ple to the Christian faith by means of his ministry. Pro- 
 bably the doctor was an interested party in this view of the 
 question, as the cause which he had then in hands might 
 have been more easily decided could his suggestions have 
 been fully established. Being contemporary with Usher 
 and Cambden, the two great luminaries of Irish and Bri- 
 tish antiquities, he communicated his objections in a letter 
 to the former, and requested he would lay them before Mr. 
 Cambden, and obtain his opinions upon their force and va- 
 lidity. Usher accordingly enclosed the letter to his friend, 
 and the result was, after mature deliberation, that these 
 two great antiquarians came to the same conclusion, that 
 the objections were groundless, and that the existence of 
 St. Patrick was as well established as that of any other per- 
 sonage recorded in the history of the time in which he lived.^ 
 
 * Dr. Ledwich, in his usual strain of insolence, impeaches the 
 moral honesty of these two eminent men for their decision on 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH. 85 
 
 Had the biography indeed of this eminent missionary 
 been altogether a literary fabrication of the middle ages, it 
 is obvious that it must have been forged to answer some par- 
 ticular purpose ; but what this purpose was has never 
 yet been discovered. It does not appear prima fade to 
 have been the mere figment of a sportive imagination which 
 was never intended to be received as a grave portion of the 
 ecclesiastical history of Ireland ; and all the circumstances 
 in it (the miraculous agency ascribed to the missionary 
 excepted) exhibit the strongest evidence, that from what 
 source soever it may have had its origin, it could not have 
 been fabricated by any writer of the middle ages. 
 
 The first work which narrates the principal events of St 
 Patrick's Life is that poem to which we have already alluded 
 written by St. Fiech, one of his own disciples^ and ad- 
 vanced by him to the episcopal dignity. These incidents, it 
 is true, have been overlaid, by subsequent biographers, 
 with the most extravagant fictions ; but, even arrayed with 
 these contemptible embellishments, they give evident proofs 
 that, if ever they were forged, it must have been at a period 
 anterior to the erection in Ireland of the papal system with 
 its incidental appendages. 
 
 We are told in his Confession that he was the son of a 
 deacon and the grandson of a priest ; and it is not likely that 
 such a statement as this should have been invented in the 
 
 this subject. " On the present occasion," says he, " our learn- 
 ed primate and his excellent friend deviate strangely from strict 
 veracity." Ant.,^. 363. But the judicious reader will know 
 how to estimate the respective merits of theso two great anti- 
 quarians and of their dogmatical opponent, 
 * Vide S, Patrick Opusc. 
 
86 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 middle ages, or made at all, had not the writers been con- 
 jfined to facts that could not be suppressed. To reconcile 
 therefore the account of his parentage with the celibacy of 
 the clergy enjoined in after ages, Joceline was obliged to 
 assume that they had taken orders after the birth of their 
 children. But this is a gratuitous asumption and based 
 upon a false supposition that the ceUbacy of the clergy was 
 an original institution of the Church. 
 
 The writings of St. Patrick, as collected by Sir James 
 Ware,* consist of three parts. The first, which is called his 
 Confession, contains in itself such internal evidence of its 
 authenticity as to set the captious objections that have been 
 raised against it at defiance. The general agreement of its 
 contents with those of the history of the time in which he 
 is averred to have lived, affords a strong presumptive evi- 
 dence in its favour ; an agreement which could not have 
 been the result of literary imposture. Besides there is such 
 a consistency in its several statements as could hardly be 
 found in a mere historical forgery. At the time of his con- 
 secration, in the year 432, he says that a friend of his re. 
 proached him with a sin of which he had been guilty thirty 
 years before, when he had scarcely attained to the fifteenth 
 year of his age. This would make him therefore about 
 forty-five at the time of his consecration. Now as the 
 expedition of Niall the great into Gaul, in which St Patrick 
 was taken captive, occurred about the year 403, it must 
 have happened just twenty-nine years before his elevation 
 to the episcopal office: and when we deduct twenty-nine 
 from forty-five we have a remainder of sixteen, which is the 
 
 *St. Patrick's Works were collected and published in London 
 by Sir Jaraes Ware, in 1656 
 
CONVERSION OF THE IRISH- 87 
 
 precise age he is stated to have been at the time of his 
 captivity. It is highly improbable therefore, that his 
 biographers should have succeeded so well in making all 
 their dates, taken in what order soever they might be, 
 harmonize in this manner, and that too, without appearing to 
 have any such object in view, had his Confession been, as 
 asserted by Dr. Ledwich, " the juvenile exercise of some 
 monk of the eleventh or twelfth century."^ 
 
 The strain of pure evangelical piety also which runs 
 through the Confession, so inconsistent with the theology 
 of the cloistered ecclesiastics of the middle ages, presents 
 no slight indication of the age in which it was written. 
 The simple facts too recorded in this production, when 
 compared with the miracles ascribed to him by the writers 
 of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, will be found to 
 strengthen the cogency of the foregoing observations ; and 
 are sufficient to satisfy the candid and ingenuous that both 
 could not have originated from the same source. 
 
 The second part of his works is a tract entitled De Tri- 
 bus Hahitamlis, which deserves to be specially noticed, as 
 containing internal evidence of the impossibility of its 
 having been produced by any of the mediccval writers. In 
 this he treats of the joys of heaven and the torments of 
 hell, but there is not the slightest allusion in it to any other 
 receptacle for the souls of the departed. Hence it may be 
 inferred that this tract was written in an age before the 
 doctrine of purgatory became prevalent in the Western 
 church, and consequently that it could not have been 
 forged in the middle ages by any of the monks of the 
 church of Rome. 
 
 *Le(l. Ant. Ire. P. 161. 
 
05 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Besides, one circumstance mentioned by Ware should 
 not be overlooked in judging of the authenticity of those 
 works ascribed to St. Patrick. The texts of Scripture 
 cited in them are all translations from the Septuagint, 
 and not quotations directly from the Vulgate ; and this 
 circumstance would of itself, in the mind of every scholar, 
 determine the time in which they were written to the 
 age in which St. Patrick lived. 
 
 The third part of these works contains several constitu- 
 tions and canons ascribed to St. Patrick, together with 
 others that were subsequently added. The number of 
 ecclesiastical enactments collected by Ware, Dachery and 
 others, would form a very large and curious volume, and 
 throw much light upon the civil and ecclesiastical history 
 of Ireland. Several of the canons of the Irish church 
 enacted in the eigth, ninth, and tenth centuries, were adopted 
 not only in England where the Irish ecclesiastics had such 
 extensive influence,* but even by several of the prelates 
 on the continent. Some of those canons are peculiarly 
 remarkable and interesting. One of them commands that 
 no curse or maledictiony should be pronounced against 
 the excommunicated, though they were ordered to be repelled 
 from the society of the faithful. Another, that in taking 
 an oath, God the Creator is alone to be adjured ; and 
 quotes the authority of St. Paul, that an oath being the end 
 of all strife, should be made only to the Almighty. In 
 the next, swearing on the gospels is mentioned : a mode of 
 
 * In 750, Ecgbriht, Archbishop of York, inserted five of the 
 Irish Canons among his Exerptlons which were compiled for 
 the use of bis diocese. 
 
 I Noll maledices. — S. Patric. Opusc p. 32. 
 
CONVERSION OP THE IRISH. 89 
 
 appealing to the Searcher of Hearts indicative of the purity 
 of the ancient religion of the Irish, but inconsistent with 
 the custom subsequently introduced of swearing on bells, 
 crosiers, and the relics of saints. One of the Canons in 
 Dachery enacts, that he who has lived irreproachably from 
 his youth to his thirtieth year, contented with one wife 
 that had been a virgin, — who had been a sub-deacon five 
 years, and as many a deacon, — may in his fortieth year be 
 a priest, and at fifty a bishop. Another anathematizes those 
 who exalt celibacy above the married state ; and agrees in 
 this with the sentiments and practice of the clergy in the 
 first and purest ages of the church. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Christianity in Ireland till the Death of St. 
 
 COLUMBA. 
 
 The conversion of the Irish nation to the religion of 
 Christ was a signal triumph over the sanguinary system 
 of superstition which had prevailed for so many ages 
 amongst ,the people : but it had little effect upon the 
 constitution and laws by which -all their civil affairs were 
 regulated. 
 
 Absorbed as the Irish writers of a subsequent period 
 were in ecclesiastical matters, they seem to have overlooked 
 for a time the civil history of their country ; and from this 
 cause their account of the latter is very meagre and 
 imperfect. Besides as it was some centuries after their 
 conversion, before the Irish adopted the computation of time 
 by the Christian era, their chronology in the interim is 
 very uncertain and inaccurate. 
 
 The change in the habits and moral conduct of the 
 people, which the Christian religion is always known to 
 effect, appears to have had but little influence in checking 
 the effusion of human blood ; and in the back ground of 
 the picture drawn of the piety and virtue which adorned 
 the character of so many of the professors of the new faith, 
 we can perceive the same lust of power, as well as the same 
 treachery and ferocity, though probably not to the same 
 extent, as that which disgraced some of the Irish princes 
 under the gloomy superstition to which they were formerly 
 subject. 
 
CHEISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 91 
 
 The successful exertions of St. Patrick and his associ- 
 ates give a brilliant lustre to the reign of that monarch dur- 
 ing whose administration the Irish Church was planted 
 and consolidated. Laogary, however, was not so fortunate 
 in his civil transactions as to transmit his name to posterity 
 with respect and celebrity ; for having entered Leinster in 
 a hostile manner, in order to enforce the payment of the 
 Boromean tribute, he was met by Criomthan, the king of 
 that province, at Atha-Dara in the county of Kildare; 
 and in the battle which ensued, the monarch's forces were 
 defeated with considerable slaughter. He was also taken 
 prisoner himself, and in order to regain his liberty, was 
 obliged to swear by the sun, the wind, and the elements, 
 that he would exonerate the Lagenians from all future 
 demands of this nature. 
 
 Compelled to submit to this humiliating condition, no 
 sooner had the monarch regained his freedom than he pro- 
 tested against all proceedings and promises into which he 
 had been forced during his captivity : but as he ended his 
 career in a short time afterwards, he was unable to take 
 any decisive action on the resolution which he then had 
 formed. He is said to have reigned thirty years as monarch 
 of Ireland ; and. to have died by an immediate visitation 
 of God, as a punishment for the breach of his oath to the 
 Lagenians.* 
 
 * In the annals of the Four Masters we have the follo^ying 
 entry on this subject : 
 
 A. D. 458. Postquam fuisset XXX annis in regimine Hiber- 
 niae, Laogarius filing Nialli Novi-obsidum, occisus est prope 
 cassiam inter Erin et Albaniam (i. e.) duos colles qui sunt i^ 
 regione Faolan, et sol et ventus occiderunt eum quia temeravit 
 
 603. 
 
92 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Whether Laogary embraced the Christian faith or not 
 before his death is uncertain ; but it is a matter which 
 admits of no doubt that some of the provincial princes 
 during his reign received the Sacrament of Baptism at the 
 hands of St. Patrick and his associates. 
 
 A. D. 463. No prince ever ascended a throne under 
 more favourable circumstances than OUial Molt, the son of 
 Dathy, who now succeeded to the monarchy. His kindred, 
 the sons and grandsons of Niall the Great, being not yet 
 sufficiently established in their respective principalities, 
 consented to his election ;* and he was accordingly chosen 
 to succeed the late monarch on the. sovereign throne. 
 Several conventions of the states were assembled, during 
 his reign, at Tara ; and almost all the princes and nobility 
 of the kingdom had received baptism at the hands of the 
 missionaries. But Lugad, the son of Laogary, who had 
 been in his minority at the time of his father's death, and 
 therefore incapable of succeeding him, h^iving now arrived 
 at the age re(iuired by the law, resolved to seize on the 
 monarchy or die in the attempt. Having therefore leagued 
 with some other princes, he soon appeared at the head of 
 an army sufficiently powerful to support his pretensions to 
 the throne. 
 
 A. D. 483. The monarch, being aware of his proceed- 
 ings, and of the formidable force he had been enabled to 
 procure, made every preparation to resist his claims, and 
 having collected all his friends and dependants to his 
 standard, he met the army of his rival upon the plains of 
 Ocha, in the county of Meath. The battle was so well 
 sustained on both sides, and the carnage was so extensive 
 
 * See O'Connor's Dissert, p. 205. 
 
CHBISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 98 
 
 in which many of the prime nobility, as well as the 
 monarch himself, were slain, that the senachies began to 
 reckon a new era from it, as they generally did from any 
 event that was peculiarly remarkable or interesting. 
 
 By the issue of the battle of Ocha, the elder branch of 
 the Tuathalian line was set aside and confined to the pro- 
 vincial government of Connaught : whilst the Hy-Nialls 
 got possession of the supreme government, which they held 
 without any effectual interruption for more than five hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 Notwithstanding the reign of Lugad, which extended to 
 twenty years, was distinguished by many bloody battles, 
 yet the obscurity which rests upon all the political transac- 
 tions of this period renders it impossible for us to ascer- 
 tain the causes that gave rise to these sanguinary contests. 
 Towards the close, however, of his administration, the Hy- 
 Nialls added to the eclat of the nation by assisting the 
 Dal-Riad race to establish a new sovereignty of Scots in 
 North Britain. Several acquisitions had been made by Irish 
 chieftains in Albany, from their first settlement there ; but 
 these chieftains having belonged to different rival septs in 
 the mother country ; and having been generally engaged 
 in their own family disputes at home, did not regard suffi- 
 ciently their mutual interests in North Britain ; and there- 
 fore they were residing in the latter country without any 
 common bond of union. A permanent establishment, how- 
 ever, was ultimately given to the Scots in their adopted 
 country by the enterprising spirit of the six sons of Ere,* 
 who founded that monarchy which not only extended its 
 
 * " They were known by the names of the two Anguses, the 
 two Lorns, and the two Ferguses." Keating, 
 
94 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 dominion, in the course of a few centuries, over the whole 
 of modern Scotland, but transmitted through the house of 
 Stuart, a long succession of monarchs to Great Britain. (*) 
 
 Lugad is said, not only to have been indifferent to 
 Christianity, but an enemy to the faith which was pro- 
 fessed in his dominions. His death occurred about the 
 year 506, and was followed by an inter-regnum of five 
 years, but from what cause we are unable to ascertain. 
 
 A. D. 513. Mortogh MacErea, the next monarch, who 
 was the third in descent from Niall the Great, is remarka- 
 ble for having lived and died a professor of the Christian 
 religion. Sabina, his queen, had also received the doctrines 
 of the gospel, and had become so eminent for her piety 
 and practical adherence to the faith she had embraced that 
 her name found a place, afterwards, in the calendar of Irish 
 saints. His reign, which lasted for twenty-one years, was, 
 like that of most of his predecessors, a continued scene of 
 bloodshed and civil commotion ; and he is said to have 
 been obliged to fight five great battles, in one year, in sup- 
 port of his own authority. It is needless to record that 
 his death was a violent one, though some controversy exists 
 as to the mode of it. 
 
 After a reign of nearly eleven years, in which several 
 battles were fought, Tuathal Maolgarb, who had succeeded 
 Mortogh, was assassinated by the foster-brother of Diar- 
 muid, to open the way for that prince to the throne : but 
 the regicide suffered the punishment which was due to his 
 crime, as he was immediately cut to pieces by the monarch's 
 guards. 
 
 A. D. 544. On the death of Tuathal, Diarmuid, who 
 
 * O'Connor's Dissert., p. 206. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 95 
 
 stood precisely in the same relation as the two preceding 
 princes to the celebrated Niall the Great, succeeded to the 
 crown of Ireland ; and in the second year of his reign, 
 Fergus and Donald, two princes of the Niallian race, in- 
 vaded the territories of the Conacians ; slew Ollial, their 
 king, and completely defeated the forces of the Western 
 province. In this instance, as well as in many others that 
 have been left on record, it may be perceived that it was 
 usual for the subordinate princes of Ireland to wage war 
 with each other without the sanction or approbation of the 
 monarch. Although his regal supremacy was acknowledged 
 in the nation, it is obvious that his power was greatly 
 circumscribed ; and that he was accustomed to act in his 
 sovereign capacity only when called upon by the national 
 voice. 
 
 During the reign of Diarmuid a circumstance occurred 
 at a convention of the states, the fatal effects of which were 
 probably not anticipated by the person with whom it origi- 
 nated. A regulation had been made at an early period, 
 which must be admitted to have been of a most salutary 
 kind amongst a people so remarkable for their mercurial 
 temperament as the Irish have been in every stage of 
 their history, that to offer violence to any person at Tara 
 during the convention should be punished by the death of 
 the offender. Cuornane MacHugh, notwithstanding this 
 law, had, in some private dispute, killed another gentleman, 
 and apprehensive of the consequences, had fled to Fergus 
 and Donald for protection : but knowing their inability to 
 screen him themselves from the penalty he had incurred, 
 they sent him to their kinsman, the celebrated St. Columba, 
 entreating that ecclesiastic to grant him an asylum in 
 
yb HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 his monastery. This, however, was of little avail ; for 
 the monarch had the homicide seized and put to death, not- 
 withstanding the influence of his protectors. 
 
 This insult offered to a person so popular as St. Co- 
 lumba, aroused his kinsmen, the Northern Hy-Nialls, to 
 take vengeance on the 'monarch ; and under the command 
 of Fergus and Donald they engaged his forces at Culdremni, 
 whom they defeated with gi'eat slaughter. Diarmuid him- 
 self with difficulty escaped ; and the people in general 
 were easily led to believe that this victory was owing to the 
 influence of St. Columba's prayers, rather than to the 
 courage and intrepidity of the forces that espoused his 
 cause. 
 
 The loss which the monarch sustained by the issue of 
 this battle was scarcely recruited when he was again in- 
 volved in a war with Guaire, or Geary, king of Conn aught, 
 the latter, in all probability, having refused to acknowledge 
 his title, or to pay the provincial tribute which had been 
 always claimed by the monarch. Having therefore collect- 
 ed a powerful force, he marched along the banks of the 
 Shannon, where St. Comin is said to have used every 
 means in his power, though without effect, to pacify the 
 contending parties, and to bring about a reconciliation. 
 Guaire was inflexible and rejected with determination all 
 the remonstrances of the pious ecclesiastic. Diarmuid's 
 troops, however, having plunged into the Shannon, gained 
 the opposite shore in spite of all the efforts of the Conaci- 
 ans, and by their bravery the latter were compelled to give 
 way in every direction. Finding himself therefore unable 
 to carry on the contest with such a poweaful antagonist, 
 Guaire, on the following day, was obliged to surrender 
 himself to the mercy of the monarch, 
 
CHBISTIANITY IN IRELAND. S7 
 
 The ceremony which is recorded as having taken place 
 upon this occasion between the two kings was probable 
 one that was practised on rebellious chieftains when re- 
 stored to the favour of the monarch against whom they 
 had waged a seditious warfare. It is said that Guaire ap- 
 proached the monarch's tent, and falling on his knees, 
 presented him with his sword, acknowledging his crime 
 and imploring forgiveness. Diarmuid arose, drew the 
 sword from its sheath, and commanded the Conacian 
 prince to lie down on his back ; and then, placing his foot 
 on his breast, and the point of his sword between his 
 teeth, he obliged Guaire, in this posture, to confess his dis- 
 loyalty, and to swear fidelity and obedience during the 
 residue of his life. This ceremony having been performed, 
 a splendid entertainment followed, and these two princes 
 continued in the closest amity for ever after.* 
 
 Diarmuid is represented on the whole as a prince of 
 the strictest justice, most sincere piety and unbounded 
 munificence. He was cut off in the year 565, after a 
 reign of twenty-one years, by the sword of Hugh Dubt 
 MacSwiney, king of Ulster, and was interred in the 
 church of Clonmacnoise, near Roscrea, which he himself 
 had founded. 
 
 Amongst the numerous persons that distinguished them- 
 selves in this age there was none that occupied a more 
 prominent place than the celebrated St. Columba, who is 
 more generally known among the Irish by the name of St. 
 Colum-kille, and to whose popularity we have already ad- 
 verted. This eminent man was born of illustrious parents, 
 
 *0'Hal. Hist., B. VIII. C. lY. 
 
98 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 in that part of the county of Donegal which now forms 
 the barony of Kilmacrenan,* about the year 522. He 
 was a descendant of Niall the Great, and his mother was 
 also of royal extraction, being of a distinguished and 
 princely house of Leinster. He received the first rudi- 
 ments of knowledge under St. Fridian, afterwards Bishop 
 of Lucca in Italy : and having finished his school educa- 
 tion, he put himself under the care of St. Finian, whose repu- 
 tation as a teacher was at that time of the most extensive 
 celebrity. Under the judicious guidance of this teacher 
 at Clonard, Columba is said to have improved himself 
 so much that his skill in expounding the holy scriptures 
 excited the highest degree of admiration amongst his coun- 
 trymen. The custom of the age, as well as the natural 
 disposition of his own mind, led him to the formation of 
 those habits which fitted him for a life of seclusion and 
 austerity. Monachism had already taken deep root in Ire- 
 land, and was, in the commencement of his career, flour- 
 ishing in consequence of its numerous professors and learned 
 academical. institutions. At Clonard, Columba was there- 
 fore assiduously engaged in the study and acquisition of 
 that knowledge which was afterwards so extensively useful to 
 the cause of religion both in Britain and Ireland. Here he 
 became a perfect master of the learned languages, and 
 applied himself with such perseverance and success in the 
 study of theology and other branches of learning, that his 
 
 *St. Columba founded an Abbey afterwards in Kilmacrenan 
 whieh was richly endowed ; and O'Donnel founded a small 
 house on the site of the ancient Abbey for friars of the order 
 of St. Francis. Near the village there is a rock on which the 
 O'Donnels, princes of Tyrconnel, Avc^re alw.iys inaugurated. 
 Seward's Topographia Hihernica. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 99 
 
 reputation was scarcely inferior to that of the most cele- 
 brated men of his time. 
 
 Having completed his monastic education, he immedi- 
 ately commenced, with zeal and assiduity, those labours 
 which have rendered his name so justly celebrated. 
 His favourite residence appears to have been a monastery 
 of his own foundation near Lough Foyle, called Doire 
 Calgach, from which the city of Derry derives its name ; 
 and such was his attachment to this place, that he is said 
 to have expressed a desire that the trees forming a beauti- 
 ful grove near the monastery, in which he was accustom- 
 ed to read and pray, should for ever remain uncut. Jour- 
 neying southward he likewise founded a religious house at 
 Durragh,* and established such a system of discipline 
 for the monks under his superintendence that they soon 
 became as famous for their learning as their piety, and 
 were thenceforward distinguished by the honourable appel- 
 lation of Ouldees, or servants of God. 
 
 Possessed as Columba was of a powerful and command- 
 ing eloquence, of talents of the first order, and of zeal the 
 most persevering, he rose rapidly in the estimation of his 
 countrymen: and it being impossible that such brilliant 
 parts and splendid acquirements should be confined within 
 the limited precincts of a monastic cell, he was sometimes 
 called forth to settle the affairs of his country, and in this 
 he evinced a decided superiority over his contemporaries. 
 Harassed, however, with the incessant feuds, animosities, 
 and tyrannies of his friends, as well as of his enemies, and 
 stimulated by the ardour of his zeal to make known the doc- 
 
 *Led. Ant., p. 59. 
 
100 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 trines of the cross to pagan nations ; in the forty-third year 
 of his age he forsook his native land, where he had gained 
 so much celebrity by his talents, and undertook a mission 
 to the unconverted Picts, at that time the most powerful 
 people in North Britain. 
 
 Having arrived in that country, Columba was courteously 
 received by his kinsman, Conall, the king of the Dal- 
 Kiada ; and that prince bestowed on him the allodium of 
 the isle of Hy, one of the Hebrides, now called lona, or 
 Icolumkille, and destined henceforth to become one of the 
 most distinguished seats of learning and religion in the 
 British islands during that and the subsequent age.^ 
 Here he established his principal monastery ; and thence 
 with his followers, whom he had brought with him from 
 Ireland, he entered the country of the Picts, and by his 
 evangelical la'bours and apostolic zeal, succeeded in bring- 
 ing that people to a knowledge of the Gospel of Christ, 
 
 After Columba had spent many years in North Britain, 
 it was found necessary for him to visit his native country 
 once more. In the various struggles and contests for the 
 crown of Ireland, which had taken place, many disorders 
 had crept into the government, and the country was much 
 distracted by the great license assumed by some classes of 
 the community. In order therefore to remedy these evils, 
 Hugh I., the reigning monarch at that time, summoned a 
 
 * Dr. Johnson, in his visit to this island, observes : — " We 
 are now treading that illustrious island which was once the 
 luminary of the Caledonian regions. That man is little to be 
 envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of 
 Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the 
 ruins of lona."— See Journey to the Western Islands, 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 101 
 
 great national assembly to meet at Drumceat, in the prov- 
 ince of Ulster. Of this convention, it is said, that notices 
 were sent to the different princes of Ireland, to Albany, to 
 the Hebrides, and to the Isle of Man : and that the names 
 of the chiefs who attended it -ire still on record ;^ amongst 
 whom were Aidan, the king of the Albanian Scots, and 
 Columba, with some of the bishops and clergy who accom- 
 pained the latter. 
 
 The first subject recorded as occupying the attention of 
 this assembly, which continued its sessions for fourteen 
 months, was the reformation of abuses which had crept 
 into the order of Jilecis, who had been a privileged class 
 from the earliest period of the Irish monarchy. In the 
 reign of Concovar MacNessa in Ulster, that prince had 
 saved the order from total destruction by his timely inter- 
 ference : but it was then that class of the fileas that were 
 intrusted with the administration of the laws, which, by 
 exceeding their proper functions, had incurred the resent- 
 ment of the nation. In the present instance, however, it 
 was the bards or poets who had caused considerable dis- 
 turbance by their arrogance and unprincipled abuse of the 
 privileges of their body. 
 
 In the schools of Ireland at this period, poetry, on 
 account of the various kinds of metre which prevailed in 
 the country, was a particular and laborious study. The 
 Irish seminaries, besides having been instituted for the 
 instruction of the higher grades of society, received also a 
 certain number of students who devoted their attention to 
 divinity, history, and poetry; and the immunities they 
 enjoyed induced numbers of idlers to enrol themselves 
 
 * O'Hal. Hist., Yol. HI. p. 80. 
 
102 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 amongst them, who by this means found an opportunity of 
 gratifying both their indolence and their vanity. 
 
 During the time of vacation in these colleges, which was 
 from May to Michaelmas, whilst the young nobility and 
 gentry retired to enjoy the society of their friends, the 
 registered students, like the military, were quartered on the 
 country : and such was their insolence, as well as their num- 
 ber, that they became a real burthen and annoyance to the 
 nation. Not content with leading a life of contemptible 
 idleness, these literary mendicants frequently perverted the 
 talent of rhyming which they had acquired, by satirizing 
 those who had neglected to show them the respect which 
 they claimed, or who refused to gratify them in the demands 
 which they were pleased to make upon them. 
 
 The monarch's intention at first was to banish these 
 poets from his dominions, as a real nuisance to his people ; 
 but at the intercession of Columba he agreed to reduce 
 their number and degrade the rest : and this regulation 
 having been proposed to the assembly, was passed into a law 
 which subsisted as long as the domestic monarchy of the 
 island. The monarch himself, every provincial king, and 
 the lord of every territory, equal to what is called a cantred, 
 were each to retain a poet, in order to record the exploits 
 and preserve the genealogies of their respective families ; a 
 salary was to be settled upon these poets, sufficient to afford 
 them an honourable maintenance ; and they were to instruct 
 the youth of their se7eral districts in history, poetry, and 
 antiquities. An archpoet, as president, was set over the 
 whole body, who was to examine the abilities and qualifica- 
 tions of the several candidates, on a vacancy, and to nomi- 
 nate those whom he judged to be the most deserving. The 
 
CHRISTIANITY^IN IRELAND. lOB 
 
 revenues assigned for their support were exempted, as be- 
 fore, from tax and plunder ; their persons were also privi- 
 leged, and besides their stated salaries, they were to be paid 
 for every poem by their patron according to its merits. 
 
 But whilst the monarch was thus successful in reform- 
 ing the abuses which had crept into the schools, he could 
 not obtain the concurrence of the meeting in other matters 
 which were subsequently brought before them. Scanlan 
 More, a chieftain in the district of Ossory, had refused to 
 pay the quota of revenue due by that territory to the 
 monarch of Ireland ; and because the son of this chieftain 
 appeared to be more obsequious to his will, Hugh wished 
 to place him in his father's position in the government of 
 that district, and for this purpose had the latter imprisoned. 
 His designs, however, were frustrated by the superior 
 influence and eloquence of St. Columba, and Scanlan was 
 released from prison and restored to his former position and 
 dignity. 
 
 Nor was the monarch more successful in obtaining the 
 concurrence of the convention in compelling the Dal-Riad 
 princes in North Britain to pay that tribute which had 
 been exacted from them by several of his predecessors. As 
 Columba was the spiritual father of this people, it was per- 
 fectly natural for him to feel an interest in the issue of this 
 question. He therefore represented to the assembly the 
 long disuse of the tribute, the indulgence which had been 
 shown to that colony by former monarchs, — how unnatural 
 it would be for the Irish to wage war upon their own de- 
 scendants for such a cause as was now under consideration, 
 and the readiness of the Albanian Scots to assist their 
 mother country still with all their forces against an enemy. 
 
104 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 All the eloquence, however, of this talented and influential 
 ecclesiastic was lost upon the Irish monarch, and he ex- 
 pressed his determination, notwithstanding the arguments 
 which had been so powerfully urged upon him, to perse- 
 vere in his purpose of exacting the tribute in question. 
 But although he- appeared inflexible on this point, he was 
 unable to prevail upon the assembly to espouse his cause. 
 Through the influence of Columba, as well as owing to the 
 extensive power of the Dal-Riada both in Ireland and 
 Albany, the Albanian Scots were declared independent, and 
 instead of being subjects and tributaries, were ever after to 
 be considered only as the allies and friends of the mother 
 country ; and thus, by the decision of this famous assembly, 
 the Irish monarchy was in future to be confined to the 
 precincts of its own island. 
 
 The mission of Columba to this convention on behalf of 
 the Albanian Scots, is taken as a proof of the high estima- 
 tion in which he was held by that people. His extensive 
 labours and genuine piety had established his character for 
 sanctity amongst his followers, whilst his brilliant talents 
 and profound judgment had given him extraordinary influ- 
 ence in the councils and public affairs of that kingdom. 
 His presence, however, at this national assembly in Ireland 
 does not appear to have been the result of any election in 
 North Britain by either the prince, the clergy, or the laity, 
 held for the purpose of appointing their own representative 
 to the meeting, but of the fact of his being by birth an Irish 
 prince, and in that capacity entitled to claim the privilege 
 of being present. 
 
 After the business of the meeting was concluded, Colum- 
 ba returned to his monastery at Hy and resumed his 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN IRELAND. 105 
 
 labours: but worn out at length in the service of his 
 Master, he died at that establishment in the year 597, 
 being in the seventy-fifth year of his age. 
 
 Having been forewarned, it is said, in his dreams, of the 
 time when his death was to take place, he arose, on the 
 morning of the day before, and, ascending a small eminence, 
 lifted up his hands and solemnly blessed the monastery. 
 Returning thence, he sat down in a hut adjoining, and 
 there occupied himself in copying part of the Psalter, till, 
 having finished a page with a passage of the thirty-third 
 Psalm, he stopped and said, "Let Baithen write the 
 remainder." Baithen was one of those companions who had 
 originally accompanied him from Ireland, and had been 
 named by him as his successor. After attending the even- 
 ing service in the church, he returned to his cell, and 
 reclining on his bed of stone, delivered some instructions 
 to his attendant to be communicated to the brethren. 
 When the bell rang for midnight prayer he hastened to 
 the church and was the first to enter it. Throwing himself 
 upon his knees, he began to pray, but his strength failed 
 him ; and his brethren, arriving soon after, found their 
 beloved superior reclining before the altar, and at the point 
 of death. Assembling all around him, they stood silent 
 and weeping, while the dying saint, opening his eyes, with 
 an expression fall of cheerfulness, made a slight movement 
 of his hand, as if to give them his parting benediction, and 
 in that effort breathed his last. 
 
 The character of this great and good man is indicated 
 by the success which attended his labours. It is said, 
 that in the early part of his career, his temper was irascible, 
 and that his conduct was haughty and imperious. But 
 
106 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 this, if true, which is by no means certain, is only admit- 
 ting that he was human and that he was not free from 
 those infirmities that are common to our nature. His con- 
 duct, however, taken altogether, without dwelling on any 
 particular portion of it with a scrutiny too severe, exhibits 
 to the world a man wholly devoted to the cause of his 
 Divine Master, and one who most cheerfully relinquished 
 his right to an earthly throne, to which he had an un- 
 doubted title, that he might extend the limits of the Re- 
 deemer's kingdom and propagate the doctrines of the cross 
 which he continued to preach with earnestness and sincerity. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 - MoNACHisM IN Ireland. 
 
 In an age in wliich it was customary to convert several 
 pagan institutions to Christian purposes, as well as in a 
 country in wliich Druiclism had so long prevailed, it is not 
 surprising that as soon as the people of Ireland were con- 
 verted to the Christian faith, they should become remark- 
 able for the multiplication and establishment of monastic 
 houses and fraternities. 
 
 Monachism had its origin in the east, and was at first 
 confined to the hermits or anachorets, who in the time of 
 persecution had taken refuge in unfrequented caves and 
 mountains, or such other places of concealment as the wild- 
 erness afibrded for their safety and protection. But about 
 the beginning of the fourth century they were formed into 
 regular communities and had certain rules prescribed for 
 their conduct by St. Anthony ; and hence th^ have been 
 denominated regulars, from the Latin word regula, which 
 signifies a rule.* 
 
 Prolific in the east, the institution soon began to bear 
 abundant fruit in the west, and numerous anachorets were 
 found afterwards in different parts of Europe. In the 
 year 347, when Athanasius was driven into exile by his 
 persecutors, he first taught the hermits of Italy and Rome 
 
 * The first orders of monks were under the immediate jurisdic- 
 tion of the Bishops, but about the end of the seventh century 
 they were exempted from Episcopal rule by the Roman pontiff". 
 See Du Pin Eccles, Bist.^ Vol. 1, jp. 677. Dublin Edition. 
 
108 HISTORY OP IRELAND, 
 
 to live together in societies. Some time after this, St. 
 Martin^ the Bishop of Tours, and maternal uncle of the 
 Irish Apostle, erected the first monastery in Gaul, where 
 the institution made such rapid progress that in the year 
 400, no less than two thousand monks, from the vicinity 
 of Tours, attended his funeral.* 
 
 From Gaul, it is probable, monachism was introduced 
 into Ireland by St. Patrick, who had spent some time in 
 St. Martin's establishment at Tours ; and hence, as soon as 
 the institution gained a footing in the island, the multi- 
 plication of monastic houses in Ireland quickly sul*passed 
 that of any other nation in Europe. It is to be remember- 
 ed, however, that they were never employed amongst the 
 Irish of this period as the asylums of sloth and indolence, but 
 were rendered a most efficient part of the ecclesiastical ma- 
 chiuery in promoting the general interests of religion. "Mon- 
 asteries," says Dr. Warner, in speaking of those of Ireland, 
 " were the only nurseries of discipline, and the chief schools of 
 learning ; and, therefore wherever a bishopric was erected 
 a monastery was usually founded near the site of it ; 
 as well for the habitation and support of the Bishop, as of 
 those who were to attend religious offices in the cathedral, 
 or to preach the gospel in the neighbouring parishes. These 
 bodies, properly speaking, were colleges of priests ; who, in 
 after ages, were distinguished by the name of secular 
 canons, and were under no vow of perpetual celibacy. Nor 
 was this the case of those only who were settled in cathedral 
 monasteries, but those also known by the name of monks and 
 nuns were allowed to marry when they saw fit. But yet in 
 the histories of those times, all these societies * * =^ pass 
 
 * See Led. Ant., p. 403. 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 109 
 
 under the general name of monasteries; which frequently mis- 
 leads the reader to judge of these foundations by those of later 
 ages. From such societies the bishops were, for the most 
 part, chosen ; hither they retired as occasion or inclination 
 led them, either for study or devotion ; and hence were 
 drawn in general the lower orders of the clergy." 
 
 These various schools and colleges of learning, which all 
 seem at this time to have adopted the general name of 
 monasteries, are admitted to have produced some of the 
 most laborious, zealous, and indefatigable missionaries : but 
 this could not have been the object of establishing houses for 
 female recluses, as the latter were most obviously engen- 
 dered by that predilection for the ascetic life which had so 
 long prevailed in the country during the existence of 
 Druidism. 
 
 In imitation of the sisterhood of vestals which had been 
 so long established at Cluan Feart, near Tara, a nunnery 
 was founded by St. Bridget (which was for ages the most 
 prominent one on the island). This celebrated and extraor- 
 dinary woman was nearly contemporary with St. Patrick 
 himself : and her high reputation, exemplary life, and numer- 
 ous foundations have rendered her name better known than 
 that of any other religious female in the age in which 
 she lived. Her fame soon spread over every country in 
 Europe, and both churches and monasteries without number 
 were dedicated to her throughout England, France, Spain, 
 Portugal, and Italy, as well as in Ireland.* 
 
 *It is probable that at one time the greater part of the "Western 
 Islands of Scotland were consecrated to her honour, as He-brides 
 or Ey-hrides signifies "the islands of Bridget." MacPhers. Crit. 
 Dissert. 
 
110 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 St. Bridget was, according to' her biographers, a native 
 of the country of Louth, and- devoted herself early in life 
 to the austerities of monastic seclusion. She lived for the 
 most part in the nunnery which she had erected at Kildare, 
 or " the cell of the oak," so called, from a very high oak 
 tree which grew near the spot.^ This was the commence- 
 ment of her famous establishment, as well as of the 
 ancient city of Kildare. In order to do honour to her 
 memory, the religious females of that house preserved a 
 , perpetual fire which they consecrated under the name of 
 St. Bridget's fire ; and which through the connivance of the 
 Bishops of Kildare, was kept burning till the thirteenth 
 century. According to the legend, though constantly sup- 
 plied with fuel, it never increased in ashes ; and to keep 
 it free from any casual pollution, it was surrounded with 
 a wattled orbicular fence, within which no male presumed 
 to enter, whilst the fire was never to be blown with the 
 mouth, but with vans of bellows. 
 
 This singular woman, it is said, died about the year 510, 
 in the seventy-first year of her age. Her festival is celebrated 
 on the first day of February ; and her mortal remains 
 were probably entombed at Down-patrick,f though that has 
 been as warmly contested as if it was a matter of prime 
 importance to the church -and nation. 
 
 But whatever some may think of the expediency or 
 
 * Ilia jam cella Scotice dicitur Kill-Dara, Latine vero sonat 
 Cella Quercus. Quercus enim altissima ibi erat, cujus stipes 
 adhuc manet. S. Brigid. Vita. 
 
 t Cambden quotes the following couplet which fixes upon 
 Down as the place of her interment : — 
 
 Hi tres in Duno tumulantur tumulo in uno, Brigida, Patricius, 
 atque Columba plus. 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. Ill 
 
 utility of sucli establishments as that which was founded by 
 St. Bridget, there ought to be but one opinion respecting 
 the celebrated institution of St. Columba in the isle of Hy, 
 to which we have already adverted. It was in the genuine 
 spirit of monachism that he selected an island* for the 
 place of his residence, as it afforded his establishment a 
 considerable degree of protection from the intrusion of 
 visitors and the impertinence of the curious. This island 
 is about three miles in length and one in breadth. The 
 name of Hy, by which it was distinguished by the Scots, is 
 obviously the Gothic Ai or Ei, referring to its oval or egg- 
 like figure. It was named Onas by the Picts, and from 
 both these names was compounded that of lonas, or lona, by 
 which it still continues to be called. The name, which was 
 thus accidentally formed, signifying in Hebrew a dove, as 
 Columba does in Latin, did not escape the notice of the 
 learned inmates of that distingiiished establishment ; and 
 from the remarks of Adamnanus, one of its abbots, it is 
 evident that that seminary was not without the acquirements 
 of Greek and Oriental literature.f 
 
 The venerable Bede, notwithstanding he has taken no 
 notice of the great apostle of the Irish nation, or of his 
 unprecedented success, gives the following account of 
 Columba's mission to the Picts, as well as his profession of 
 the life of a monk : " In the year," says he, " of our Lord's 
 
 * A Latin poet of the fifth century writes thus : — 
 Processu pelagi jam se Capraria tollit, 
 Squalet lucifugis insula plena viris, 
 Ipsi se monachos, Graio cognomine, dicunt, 
 Quod soli nullo vivere teste volunt. 
 
 t Adam. In Exord. Sec. Prsef. 
 
112 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 incarnation five hundred and sixty-five, there came out of 
 Ireland into Britain, a presbyter and abbot, a monk in life 
 and habit, very renowned, by name Columba, to preach the 
 word of God to the northern Picts. This Columba came 
 into Britain when king Brudeus, son of Meilochan, reigned 
 oyer the Picts. It was in the ninth year of his reign, that 
 by his preaching and example he converted this nation to 
 the faith of Christ."^ 
 
 It was about the time of his death that the mission of 
 Augustine was commenced in England under the auspices 
 of Gregory the Great; and it was in a great measure owing 
 to the Culdees, his followers, that the liberties and religious 
 services of the Irish church were so long preserved and 
 perpetuated in opposition to every attempt that was subse- 
 quently made upon them. His zeal as a monk was evinced 
 in the numerous foundations which originated with him in 
 Ireland ; but that of Hy seems to have been the most cele- 
 brated both at home and abroad. The abbots who succeeded 
 Columba in Hy, were Baithen in 597 ; Fergnanus in 598; 
 Segienus in 623 ; Suibney in 652 ; Cummineus in 657 ; 
 Failbeus in 669 ; Adamnanus in 679 ; Conain in 704 ; and 
 Dmnchad in 710. At length Naitan, king of the Picts, 
 instigated by some of the enemies of this noble order, ex- 
 pelled the Culdees from Hy, A. D. 717 ; and thus sacrificed 
 the most illustrious fraternity that was then known in the 
 west of Europe.f 
 
 ♦Bede, Lib. III. Cap. 4. 
 
 t Education soon became the great object to which the succes- 
 sors of Columba devoted themselves. To then* resorted the young 
 from all the adjacent continents ; — from Scotland, from Ireland, 
 and England, and even from Scandinavia, to acquire the learning 
 and study the discipline of the Columban Church." — Scotland in 
 the Middle Ages. By Professor Innes. 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 113 
 
 Persecution naturally followed this act of injustice and 
 Yiolence : and in every place in which the Columban monks 
 had been successful in establishing themselves, they were 
 followed by the most relentless intolerance and rancorous 
 opposition. In a charter granted by David, king of Scot- 
 land, it is recited that he had given to the canons of St. 
 Andrew the Isle of Lochleven to institute there the 
 canonical rule, and that the Culdees, its ancient possessors, 
 should they think fit to conform to that rule, live peaceably, 
 and in subjection to the canons, might continue there; but 
 if they rejected these terms, they were to be expelled. It 
 could not be expected that men who had evinced such an 
 uncompromising spirit towards any innovation upon the 
 economy of their own church, would tamely submit to such 
 a proposal as this, and they were therefore driven from their 
 estabhshment. 
 
 The paschal controversy which agitated the church at an 
 early period afforded the persecuted order an opportunity of 
 appearing as the strenuous champions of their own eccle- 
 siastical independence. In imitation of the Jewish Passover, 
 the primitive Christians had instituted a similar festival in 
 commemoration of the resurrection. It was at the time of 
 the paschal solemnity, which was celebrated on the four" 
 teenth day of the moon in the first month, that the Saviour 
 of mankind was crucified, and this circumstance determin- 
 ed the Christians to hold their festival precisely at the same 
 time.* The Roman Church, however, cgnceiving that this 
 mode of celebrating the anniversary of the resurrection was 
 rather adopting the Jewish feast than ordaining a new one 
 of their own, transferred the celebration to the Sunday after, 
 
 * Du Pin's Eccles. Hist., Vol. I. P. T4. Dub. Ed. 
 
114 ' • HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 unless that day fell upon the fourteenth. But the Asiatic 
 and African Churches still adhered to the former custom of 
 celebrating the festival according to its first institution. 
 
 This want of uniformity in practice soon produced a 
 spirit of mutual recrimination between the two parties ; and 
 for a long time continued to agitate the eastern and western 
 churches. Nor was it found possible, notwithstanding the 
 interference of some of the most learned and celebrated 
 prelates, to settle this apparently insignificant dispute until 
 the subject was taken up in the year 325 by the Council of 
 Nice. • 
 
 As the time of observing this feast depended on astron- 
 omical calculation, it was resolved that the Bishop of Alex- 
 andria should consult the Egyptian astronomers every year, 
 and make known the result of their observations to the 
 eastern churches ; and that he should also communicate 
 the same to the Bishop of Rome, who was to announce it 
 to those in the west. The Boman method of calculation, 
 however, did not agree with the Alexandrian, as the cycle 
 employed in the former contained eiglity-four years, and 
 that which was used in the latter nineteen. Hence the 
 limits of the equinoctial lunation were fixed to difierent 
 days ; and it was therefore impossible to maintain a uni- 
 formity between the eastern and western churches in the 
 observance of this solemnity.* 
 
 This dispute was carried on for a considerable time with 
 much acrimony, and great zeal was evinced in making pro- 
 selytes to the respective parties. With the Asiatics, not- 
 
 * In the year 417, Easter was celebrated at Rome on the 25th 
 of March, and at Alexandria on the 22nd of April. — See Ling. 
 Ant.^ p. 35, Note 63. 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 115 
 
 withstanding the Roman custom had been sanctioned by 
 the Council of Nice, and its decrees enforced by the com- 
 mand of the emperor Constantino, the British and Irish 
 clergy still adhered to the practice of their ancestors,* and 
 refused to submit to a mandate which they considered as 
 infringing upon the rights and privileges of their respec- 
 tive churches. 
 
 Considerable importance was also attached by some of the 
 early Christians to the particular mode of wearing the ec- 
 clesiastical tonsure, which did not fail to widen the breach 
 that had been already made by other differences of prac- 
 tice between the religious litigants of this period. The ap- 
 parent magnitude of controversial subjects in different ages 
 of the church will be found frequently to vary according 
 to the medium through which they are viewed ; and it 
 often happens that the enthusiastic polemic, in the efferves- 
 cence of his zeal, may be seen imitating a child, who will 
 leave the most serious and needful occupation to pursue 
 the down of the thistle that drives past him. That a con- 
 troversy should not only exist about a point so intrinsically 
 absurd as that of the clerical cut of the hair, but be 
 pursued with such ardour and interest by men of learning 
 and piety, cannot fail to excite surprise in the present 
 enlightened age of the world. But, perhaps, when the 
 ecclesiastical tonsure is viewed in connexion with the 
 independence of a national church, and when the change 
 attempted to be forced upon the clergy even in this 
 
 * Bede's charitable view of their conduct in this instance is 
 mildly exhibited in the following words : — "Utpote quibus longe 
 extra orbem positis nemo synodalia paschalis observanti* de- 
 creta prorexerat." — Bed., Lib. Ill, Cap. 4. 
 
116 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 trifling matter is looked upon as a mark of their subjection 
 to a foreign power, it will appear in a very different light. 
 
 By the Roman monks the upper part of the head was 
 shaved, which was surrounded with a circle of hair in im- 
 itation of the crown of thorns put upon the head 
 of the Redeemer, by his enemies; whilst the Irish 
 and British, allowing the hair to grow on the crown, 
 shaved the front of the head in the form of a crescent.* 
 Each party being surprised and shocked at the 
 uncanonical appearance of the other, appealed to antiquity, 
 and to the precedent of their respective founders either 
 real or supposed ;t and refused to make the slightest con- 
 cession upon this apparently trifling and unimportant sub- 
 ject. 
 
 The celebrated controversy afterwards on what was 
 called "The three Chapters," which involved an impor- 
 tant point of doctrine, served to cast a deeper shade upon 
 the character of the Irish clergy and to furnish their ene- 
 mies with materials for attacking them, as men who were 
 extensively tainted with fundamental errors. To enter 
 into a particular history of this subject which gave rise to 
 so much litigation in the church would not comport with 
 our present design : suffice it to say, that the conduct of 
 the clergy of Ireland on this occasion, though by no means 
 justifiable, affords the most convincing evidence of their 
 
 * Bed. Lib. III., Cap. 25. Ling. Ant., p. 31. 
 
 t " Numquid," says Colman, "patrem nostrum Oolumbam, et 
 successores ejus divinis paginis contraria sapuisse vel egisse 
 credendum est? quos ego sanctos esse non dubitans, semper 
 eorum vitam, mores, et disciplinam sequi non desisto." — Bed., 
 Lib. Ill, Cap. 25. 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 117 
 
 irresponsibility to any foreign power in the church, respect- 
 ing either doctrine or discipline. 
 
 The pieces that were distinguished by the name of " The 
 Three Chapters," were certain productions which had been 
 published upon the Nestorian Controversy,* and on 
 which the Irish and Roman churches took opposite sides of 
 the question : and notwithstanding an edict was published 
 in 553, condemning these writings, yet the authortiy of the 
 Council of Constantinople, seconded by that of the emper- 
 or, had no effect upon the minds of the Irish ecclesiastics, 
 and they persevered in the view they had originally 
 taken.f Of the merits of the subject of debate we are not 
 called upon to determine. 
 
 From the extensive multiplication of monastic establish- 
 ments in Ireland during this age we may form some opin- 
 ion of the state of learning and education in the country, 
 as well as of the cause which produced so many men of 
 zeal and erudition that distinguished themselves in almost 
 every country in Europe during the seventh and eighth 
 centuries. The Irish monasteries, as we have aheady seen, 
 were so many schools of learning and discipline ; and their 
 inmates having devoted themselves to the pursuits of lit- 
 
 *See Mosh. Cent. VI, Part. II. 
 
 t " All the Irish Bishops, '' says Cardinal Baronius, " zeal- 
 ously joined in defence of ' The Three Chapters.' On being con- 
 demned by the Church of Rome, and finding the sentence con- 
 firmed by the fifth council, they added the crime of schism ; and 
 separating themselves from it, they joined the schismatics of 
 Italy and Africa and other regions— exalting themselves in the 
 vain presumption that they were standing up for the Catholic 
 faith." Baron. Annall, 
 
118 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 erature and piety, it was quite natural that they should 
 bring forth abundantly such salutiferous fruit. 
 
 Whithout repeating our remarks respecting the literary 
 claims of the ethnic Irish, it must be confessed that the 
 introduction of Christianity amongst the people promoted 
 an extensive improvement in the literature of the nation ; 
 inasmuch as the missionaries necessarily introduced the 
 Latin language, though without that purity or elegance 
 which distinguished the Latin writers of an earlier period. 
 In the compositions of the natives themselves, in their own 
 language, there is to be found no indication of their ac- 
 quaintance with the Grreek or Latin classics, as their pro- 
 ductions are generally formed on the model of the old fileas,* 
 to whom the classical authors were probably unknown: 
 but they employed the Latin tongue in the study of the 
 Holy Scriptures and of the works of some of the earlier 
 divines in the church. 
 
 The ferocious cruelty practised towards the aborigines of 
 Britain by the Anglo-Saxons was peculiarly calamitous to 
 the literature of that country ; but the fire having been 
 forbidden to burn on the usual altar, sought every avenue 
 of escape and produced a most salutary effect upon other 
 places. Driven from their own country by the treach- 
 ery and violence of their former allies, the British clergy 
 found in Ireland a secure retreat from those civil broils 
 which peaceful and studious men are so much indisposed 
 to encounter; and, in return for the hospitality they 
 received, they conferred lasting benefits upon the inhabi- 
 tants, by assisting them in the foundation and establishment 
 
 * O'Con. Dissert., pp. 187, 198. 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 119 
 
 of their literary institutions.* In the sixth century learn- 
 ing was in a flourishing state in Wales ;f as that country 
 could then boast of men of extensive acquirements and 
 literary fame : and the indiscriminate admission of learned 
 men, either Britons or Irish, to the government of monas- 
 teries and schools, which was common in this age,J would 
 justify the inference, that whatever learning either of them 
 acquired was communicated to the other: for this must 
 have been a natural consequence of that fraternal intercourse 
 which was invariably maintained between the leading men 
 of their respective establishments. 
 
 Of the system of education adopted throughout Europe 
 at this time we ought not to think lightly, when we consi- 
 der the disadvantages under which men were obliged to 
 labour. The Encyclopaedia of the Greeks and the liberal 
 Arts of the Romans, which were generally taught in the 
 schools, differed at first in number, but were at length 
 fixed to Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic, Arithmetic, Music? 
 Geometry, and Astronomy : and each of these was formed 
 into an elementary treatise, more or less perfect, according 
 to the abilities of the composer. 
 
 The first stage of these sciences was Grammar, wliich 
 was followed successively by Rhetoric and Logic. These 
 three branches were denominated the Trivium ;§ and when 
 
 * Usser, Primord., pp. 563, 564. Led. Ant., p. 160. 
 
 t StilL Brit. Churches, pp. 202-346. 
 
 t For instances see Led. Ant., p. 164. 
 
 § The Trivium was a term invented in the times of barbarism 
 to express the three sciences that were first learned in the 
 schools, viz. Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic ; and the schools in 
 which these sciences alone were taught, were called Triviales. 
 The quadrivium comprehended the four mathematical sciences, 
 viz. Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy." 3Iosh. Cent, 
 XI, Part. II. 
 
120 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the young student had completed the study of these and 
 wished to pursue his literary progress still farther, he was 
 conducted slowly through the quadrivium, the mastery of 
 which placed him at the very summit of literary honour. 
 From the writings of Aristotle and his disciples an 
 # acquaintance with the rules of Logic was generally ac- 
 quired ; and by the precepts of that celebrated 
 master, the Logician was initiated into the art o^ 
 disputation. But the difficulty attendant upon the 
 computation of numbers surpassed that of every thing 
 else in the whole circle of the sciences. To the ingenuity 
 of the Arabians we are indebted for the invention of our 
 present numeral characters, which have so facilitated the 
 acquisition of Arithmetic as to render it familiar even to 
 the capacity of children ; but this was far from being the 
 case with our less favoured ancestors. Being strangers 
 to an invention so valuable, they were obliged to perform 
 every Arithmetical operation with the assistance of those 
 seven letters which were employed by the Romans ; and it 
 must be obvious that in such protracted calculations as 
 difficult problems sometimes require it was almost impos- 
 sible to form the necessary combinations. Embarrassed by 
 this tedious and difficult mode of calculation, the operator, 
 instead of making use of numerical signs, was frequently 
 obliged to write out at full length the numbers which he 
 wished to employ. The management of fractions also 
 increased his embarrassment, as this was still more difficult, 
 than that of whole numbers ; and the inconvenience of 
 the different plans that had been devised to facilitate the 
 science of computation having been severely felt, a kind of 
 manual arithmetic was at length adopted, in which by 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 121 
 
 varying the position of tlie hands and fingers, the different 
 operations were more readily performed.* 
 
 In philosophy, as well as in Logic, Aristotle was also fol- 
 lowed in the age of which we treat. A very curious work, 
 comprehending all the foregoing arts and sciences, and 
 written in the fifth century by Capella, is said to be still 
 extant ; and notwithstanding it could add nothing to the 
 general stock of knowledge in the present day, it is exceed- 
 ingly valuable, inasmuch as it gives us a view of the 
 literary attainments of the clergy and superior classes in 
 the middle ages. In the sixth century it was in general 
 use in the French monasteries, and it was considered that 
 a perfect knowledge of this work completed the character 
 of the accomplished scholar. From the early intercourse 
 which is known to have subsisted between Ireland and 
 France, it is most probable that Capella was taught at this 
 period, as a classic in the Irish schools :f and this suppo- 
 sition is strengthened by its having been commented upon 
 by Johannes Scotus Erigena, as well as by Duncan, an 
 Irish bishop, who taught in the monastery of St. Remigius 
 at Eheims,J and wrote a commentary upon it for the use 
 of his students. 
 
 By a perusal of two treatises, written by Bede, one en- 
 titled De Natura Eerum, and the other De Temjporum Ra- 
 tione, may be seen the puerile system of philosophy and 
 physics which was at that time so generally adopted in the 
 schools, and taught by men of the most brilliant talents and 
 persevering application to the study of the sciences. This 
 
 * Ling. Ant., p. 330. 
 t Led. Ant., p, 165. 
 
 + Lanigan's Eccles. Hist., VoL III, pp. 403, 405. 
 I 
 
122 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 eminent writer admitted the four elements of fire, air, water, 
 and earth. The inexhaustible prolificacy of nature, as well 
 as the various properties of bodies, he attributed to the dif- 
 ferent combinations of these elements, with the additional 
 aid of the four primary qualities of heat, cold, moisture, 
 and aridity. The atmosphere of the earth he supposed to 
 be immediately surrounded by the orbits of the seven plan- 
 ets and the firmament of the fixed stars. From the diurnal 
 motion of the heavenly bodies, which describe concentric 
 circles of a smaller diameter as they approach towards the 
 north, he inferred that the immense assemblage of celestial 
 globes in the stellar regions daily revolves with amazing 
 rapidity round the earth, on an imaginary axis, of which 
 the two extremities are called the northern and southern 
 poles.^ 
 
 To account for the twofold and opposite motions of the 
 planets, in accordance with the existing theory, was a task 
 too great for the utmost efforts of human ingenuity. It 
 was admitted that the natural direction of their orbits lay 
 from west to east ; but as that was not the direction in 
 which they moved daily, it was thought that their progress 
 was constantly opposed by the more powerful rotation of 
 the fixed stars which compelled them to perform a diurnal 
 revolution round the earth in a contrary direction. Being 
 altogether unac<painted with the ingenious invention of 
 epicycles, most of the inequalities observed in the planet- 
 ary motions were ascribed by this learned monk to the 
 more or less oblique action of the solar rays, by which they 
 were sometimes accelerated, sometimes retarded, and some- 
 times entirely suspended. 
 
 * Bed. de Nat. Rer., Chapters I- VIII. 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 123 
 
 The sun he supposed. to be a globular mass of fiery par- 
 ticles, preserved in a state of ignition by perpetual rotation : 
 and to account for the supply which he would require for 
 the exhaustion caused by the continual emission of the 
 rays of light and heat, he supposed that the losses which 
 were thus sustained were quickly repaired from the numer- 
 ous exhalations of the ocean situated under the torrid zone.^ 
 Pythagoras had taught, nearly five centuries before the 
 Christian era, the doctrine of the antipodes and of the 
 earth's rotundity ; but his theory was not founded on any 
 sound philosophical basis. The Pythagorean hypothesis 
 was also too repugnant to the daily illusions of the senses 
 to obtain credit ; and for many centuries that theory was 
 adopted which forms the foundation of the Ptolemean sys- 
 tem. This latter, which supposed the earth to be a plane, 
 was defended by many illustrious philosophers, and conti- 
 nued to prevail till Copernicus revived the* old one. 
 
 The Irish, however, formed an honourable exception to 
 that general prostration of intellect before preconceived 
 notions and erroneous systems, which in the other nations 
 of Europe had become so prevalent. Even at this early 
 period they had not only become acquainted with the spher- 
 icity of the earth, but were able so to account for the plane- 
 tary motions as to show how far they had risen above the 
 age in which they lived. 
 
 The destruction of monastic libraries by the northern 
 invaders, and many calamitous circumstances that sub- 
 sequently occurred, deprive us of the means of giving such 
 
 * Bed. de Nat. Rer. Cap. XIX. — For a more enlarged epitome 
 of Bede's philosophy see Dr. Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo- 
 Saxon Church, pp. 331-^336. 
 
124 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 a condensed epitome of the philosophy of the Irish as we 
 have been able to present of that of the venerable Bede. 
 A few facts, however, that will appear in our Biographical 
 Notices of Irish missionaries, together with some foreign 
 testimonies, will be found suflficient to justify the state- 
 ment we have made. " That the Hibernians were lovers 
 of learning," says Mosheim, " and distinguished them- 
 selves in those times of ignorance, by the culture of the 
 sciences beyond all other European nations, travelling 
 through the most distant lands, with a view to improve and 
 to communicate their knowledge, is a fact with which I 
 have been long acquainted, as we see them in the most 
 authentic records of antiquity, discharging with the 
 highest reputation and applause the function of doctors, in 
 France, Germany, and Italy, both during this and the 
 following century. But that these Hibernians were the first 
 teachers of scholastic theology in Europe, and sa early as 
 the eighth century, illustrated the doctrines of religion by 
 the principles of philosophy, I learned but lately from the 
 testimony of Benedict, abbot of Aniane, in the province 
 of Languedoc, who lived in this period, and some of whose 
 productions are published by Baluzius in the fifth tome of 
 his Miscellanea." 
 
 After quoting the testimony, Mosheim adds, " that the 
 Irish, who in the eighth century were known by the name 
 of Scots, were the only divines who refused to dishonour 
 their reason by submitting it implicitly to the dictates of 
 authority : naturally subtle and sagacious, they applied 
 their philosophy to the illustration of the truths and doc- 
 trines of religion, a method which was almost generally 
 abhorred and exploded in all other nations." 
 
MONACHISM IN IRELAND. 125 
 
 From tliis statement of the German Historian, we can 
 perceive the fallacy of the common opinion, that scholastic 
 theology had its origin in the eleventh century, as the 
 Irish divines had cultivated it three centuries before, 
 though condemned and abhorred by the other ecclesiastics 
 of Europe. 
 
 On the whole we may learn that in this age, notwith- 
 standing the secluded position of Ireland, it was the prime 
 seat of learning and scientific knowledge to other nations.^ 
 Hither the sciences had fled for protection, and were 
 cultivated with a degree of zeal and assiduity unparelleled 
 in an age of general darkness and ignorance. This liter- 
 ary brilliancy by which the west of Europe was so long 
 enlightened, was owing in a great measure to the monks of 
 St. Columba, whose labours were unremitting amidst all 
 the storms which their adversaries were continually raising 
 against them. The Irish monasteries were then the only 
 nurseries of discipline and the chief schools of learning ; 
 and their number before the end of the eighth century is 
 almost incredible considering the extent and population of 
 the country. 
 
 * Of Alfred king of Northumbria, Bede, in his Life of St. 
 Outbbert, speaks in the following manner : — 
 
 Scotorum qui turn versatus finibus hospes, 
 Ctelestam intento spirabat corde sophiam. 
 Nam patrias fine et dulcia liquerat arva, 
 Sedulus ut Domini mysteria disceret exul. 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 Civil and Military History till the Northern 
 Invasion. 
 
 In the history of most countries the principal place is 
 given either to foreign and domestic wars, or to those civil 
 and political transactions in which statesmen are usually 
 engaged, whilst the affairs of the church and the progress 
 of literature are narrated as matters of minor consideration 
 and worthy to form only a secondary subject of detail. 
 But this order will be found to be reversed in the early 
 history of Ireland, as the civil and political concerns of the 
 nation are either altogether neglected or but very imper- 
 fectly sketched in its pages, whilst ecclesiastical matters, 
 with the lives and actions of men of learning and eminence 
 in the church, are narrated with such pleonastic detail, that 
 the superficial and unthinking reader might be induced to 
 view them as forming the entire history of the country 
 from the mission of St. Patrick, till the close of the eighth 
 century. 
 
 The four monarchs who immediately succeeded OlioU 
 Molt, had received the diadem at Tara, the place that had 
 been set apart by the constitution for the inauguration of 
 the kings of Ireland. But during Diarmuid's reign some 
 criminal having taken refuge in the monastery of St. Ruan 
 of Lothra, and having been dragged thence to Tara and 
 put to death, it was supposed that the abbot had pro- 
 nounced a malediction on its walls, as from that time the 
 glory of Tara began to be eclipsed, and other places were 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. 127 
 
 appointed thenceforward, discretionally, for conferring the 
 royal dignity and for holding the national conventions, 
 
 A. D. 565. — On the death of Diarmuid, Fergus and 
 Donald, the two sons of Murtogh, ascended the throne, 
 and reigned conjointly for one year. During this short 
 period they were engaged in war with the king and people 
 of Leinster, occasioned by the usual source of bloodshed in 
 that province ; and in a battle fought at Gabra Liffe no less 
 than four hundred of the Leinster nobility and warriors 
 were killed. Whether the two monarchs were mortally 
 wounded in this engagement or came to theii' end by 
 natural death, is uncertain ; but as they both died at the 
 same time, shortly after, the former supposition is the more 
 probable. Neither is there any satisfactory account of the 
 next three successions, but that Achy the son of Donald, 
 and Baodan the son of Murtogh reigned conjointly for two 
 years, and were slain ; that the same fate attended Anmi- 
 rey, the next monarch of the same family, in three years ; 
 and that his successor, Baodan II, held the crown but one 
 year before he was treacherously murdered. 
 
 A. D. 572. The reign of Hugh I, who was called to 
 the throne on the death of Baodan, is rendered remarkable 
 by the meeting of that great national convention at Drum- 
 ceat, of which we have given an account .in the preceding 
 chapter. After that meeting, and the reformation effected 
 in consequence of its decisions, Hugh seems to have pro- 
 ceeded in his government without much disturbance. 
 
 The factions, however, which prevailed at this period 
 and for some time previously, amongst the Hy-Nialls were 
 an inexhaustible source of misery and affliction to the people 
 at large. Divided amongst themselves, this race united 
 
128 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 only to disturb the neighbouring provinces ; and Leinster 
 in particular felt their oppressive tyranny in the exaction 
 of the long litigated and vexatious tribute. The convention 
 of Drumceat had neglected the imperative duty of applying 
 a remedy to this evil, which they would not have done had 
 the Lagenians had in that assembly such an advocate as 
 Columba proved to be in behalf of the Albanian Scots. 
 Brandubh, the king of Leinster, was therefore obKged to 
 make every effort to defend by the law of arms his own 
 rights, as well as those of his subjects, and having met the 
 monarch's forces at Dunbolg, the latter were cut to pieces, 
 and Hugh himself fell by the sword of Brandubh in the 
 twenty-seventh year of his reign. 
 
 By the issue of this battle the northern and southern 
 branches of the royal family were for some time united, 
 under the joint administration of Hugh II, surnamed 
 Slaney, a son of Diarmuid, who reigned in 565, and Cole- 
 man Rimidh, king of Meath, son of Baodan, who reigned 
 in 568, both of them being lineally descended from Niall 
 the Great. These copartners in the monarchy, we are told, 
 assisted Aidan^ king of the Albanian Scots, then at war 
 with Ethelfrid, king of the Northumbrians ; while at the 
 same time they were meditating an attack upon his half- 
 brother Brandubh, whom they defeated in the battle of 
 Slabhry in Leinster, and thereby established the Hy-Niall 
 power over all the provinces. 
 
 Having thus overcome the common danger, the northern 
 and southern branches of this race revived their old animo- 
 sities, and satiated their revenge, either in the open field, 
 or by private assassination. The treachery of Conall Guth- 
 binn, prince of Meath, who plotted and executed the mur- 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. 129 
 
 der of the two reigning monarchs, in the sixth year of their 
 administration, gave the nation an utter dislike to the 
 southern branch of the Hy-Niall race ; and therefore the 
 northern family obtained the sovereign throne without 
 much opposition. 
 
 Hugh III, having been elected monarch, was killed in 
 battle at Da Fertha, near the river Boyne, in the year 612; 
 and the throne was seized by Maolcova son of Hugh I, who 
 held it for three years, when he was cut off by the sword 
 of his successor Suivney Meann, great grandson of the 
 monarch Murtogh ; and he again after a reign of thirteen 
 years, by Congal Claon of the Eudrician race of Ulster. 
 
 A. D. 628. The first act of the administration of 
 Donald, the brother of Maolcova, who next ascended the 
 throne, was to take vengeance on the prince who had slain 
 his predecessor. He defeated Congal Claon in the battle 
 of Dunkehern, and obliged him to seek an asylum in 
 Britain, where he remained an exile for the space of nine 
 years. 
 
 This prince was a man of insinuating address, of the most 
 consummate hypocrisy, and unscrupulous about the means 
 by which he sought popularity. His physical courage could 
 not be called in question, but his moral principle was weak 
 and vacillating. He therefore sought the favour of those 
 amongst whom his lot was cast without much regard to 
 their real worth or his own dignity of character. During 
 his exile he had sufficient address to promote his own 
 designs both at home and abroad ; and when the time was 
 come for action, Saxons, Britons, Albanian Scots, and Picts 
 flocked to his standard. His domestic partisans prepared 
 for his reception, and he landed with safety on the coast of 
 Down, 
 
130 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 The monarch, however, was not taken by surprise, when 
 his dominions were thus invaded by a motley aggregate of 
 foreigners : and having collected his forces, he encountered 
 the enemy at Moyrath,* and commenced a battle which 
 continued with various success for six days. But on the 
 seventh, Congal's forces began to give way, and were at 
 length not only routed, but their leader himself was num- 
 bered amongst the slain. 
 
 Encouraged by his success in the defeat of the invaders, 
 Donald was by no means displeased at having another 
 opportunity of taking the field against an enemy whose 
 injustice was calculated to give considerable popularity to 
 his cause. The southern Hy-Nialls having by degrees 
 encroached upon the Mensal Lands of the monarch at Tara, 
 and finding negociation useless, he resolved to have recourse 
 to arms, for the purpose of restoring those lands to the 
 crown. With this object in view he therefore raised a for- 
 midable force, and at its head marched into Meath. But 
 the sons of Hugh Slaney, the chiefs of the southern Hy- 
 Nialls, being sensible that their troops were much inferior 
 to the monarch's both in number and discipline, and there- 
 fore dreading an engagement, had recourse to St. Fechin, 
 an abbot descended from their own house, that he might 
 assist them by his prayers, or interpose with the monarch 
 on their behalf. Donald, however, rejected the mediation of 
 this ecclesiastic, and was threatened with divine vengeance 
 for his resolute inflexibility : but this menace had little 
 effect upon his mind. Despising the presumptuous threats 
 
 * Moyrath, which is now written Moira, is situated in the 
 Barony of Ineagh in the County of Down and province of Ulster. 
 Topog. Hihern.j Moira, 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. 181 
 
 of his enemies as much as he did the imbecile force which 
 had been arrayed against him, he resolved to persevere in 
 the prosecution of the object which he had in view. But 
 the subsequent evening an unusual fall of snow which hap- 
 pened to come on, was taken to be an indication of that 
 wrath which had been denounced by the saint ; and an 
 aurora hoj'ealis, which followed this, convinced even the 
 queen herself that Heaven had espoused the cause of the 
 opposite party. The monarch was therefore obliged to 
 make peace upon the best terms he could obtain, or to 
 carry on the war without troops, as he found his army 
 resolved not to fight against an enemy that had been taken 
 under the protection of a patron so powerful. Articles 
 were accordingly soon agreed upon by the contending par- 
 ties, and the monarch was obliged to relinquish his design. 
 
 A. D. 642. Donald was succeeded by his two nephews 
 Conall Claon and Kellack (or Kelly), sons of his prede- 
 cessor Maolcova ; who governed conjointly for the space of 
 twelve years, when Kellach lost his life by an accident in 
 a bog in the neighbourhood of Trim ; and Conall continued 
 to reign alone for four years longer, when he was killed by 
 Diarmuid one of his successors. 
 
 The latter prince, in conjunction with his brother Blath- 
 mac, now seized on the monarchy. They were the sons of 
 Hugh Slaney, and must have been far advanced in years 
 at the time of their accession. In the month of May, A. D. 
 665, being" in the seventh year of their reign, an eclipse 
 of the sun occurred, which was followed by a very fatal 
 disease called Bidve Chonaill, or the yellow plague, which 
 carried off great numbers in its ravages, and even the reign- 
 
132 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 ing monarchs themselves fell victims in tlie general visi- 
 tation.* 
 
 Seaclmasacli, the son of Blatlimac, succeeded peaceably 
 to the monarchy, on the death of his father and of his 
 fraternal colleague. But with the exception of some preda- 
 tory visits paid to the northern province by the Picts, we 
 have no account of his administration, until he was killed 
 in the sixth year of his reign and was succeeded by his 
 brother. 
 
 Nor are the four years during which Cionnfala, his suc- 
 cessor, swayed the sceptre less barren of historical records. 
 
 The county of Down was again visited by the Picts, 
 who, besides pillaging the country, burned the famous 
 monastery of Bangor, and put to the sword or dispersed 
 the inmates of that noble establishment. Shortly after, 
 the monarch himself shared the same fate of most of 
 the Irish kings, as he was killed in the year 675, by his 
 successor. 
 
 Fionachta Fladhach, who now got possession of the 
 throne, was the grandson of Hugh I., and a very favour- 
 able representation is given of the justice and uprightness 
 of his character. His reign commenced inauspiciously by 
 an invasion of the province of Leinster in order to enforce 
 the payment of that impost which had been so long exacted 
 from the Lagenians by his predecessors. But having been 
 opposed by the provincialists, a battle was fought near 
 Kells, in which the latter were defeated with great slaugh- 
 ter. After the battle, however, St. Moling, the Bisliop of 
 Ferns, a prelate of noble blood, went out at the liead of 
 
 * Keating, Vol. XL, p. 135. 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. 138 
 
 his clergy to meet the victors. In addressing the monarch, 
 the Bishop most pathetically deplored the distresses and 
 hardships of his country, and the quantity of blood that 
 had been shed from time to time, for so many centuries, to 
 enforce the payment of a tribute in itself both unjust and 
 oppressive. He observed that its continuance for such a 
 length of time was in manifest antagonism with the express 
 word of God, which declares that the sins of the parents' 
 shall not be visited upon the children beyond the third 
 and fourth generation ; and, upon the whole, made such a 
 forcible appeal to the conscience of the monarch that the 
 latter solemnly exonerated the Lagenians from any further 
 demand of this oppressive and iniquitous tribute. 
 
 The severe treatment which the people of Ulster and 
 Leinster received at different times from the hands of the 
 Hy-Niall princes induced them frequently to call in the 
 Britains and Saxons to their assistance.^ Two princes of 
 the Picts, Cathusach and Ultan, had leagued with the Bri- 
 tons to invade Ireland, but were defeated by the Hy-Nialls 
 in a decisive battle. In about two years after, Egfrid, the 
 king of the Northumbrians, sent an army into Ulster 
 against the Northern Hy-Nialls, where Bertus, who had the 
 command of the expedition, committed great devastations, 
 sparing neither the churches nor seats of learning in his 
 desolating course.f Fionachta, however, came up with 
 the Northumbrians and cut some of them off : but Bertus 
 succeeded in making good his retreat, and carried off most 
 of the plunder on board of his ships, 
 
 * Vide Bed. Eccles. Hist., Lib. IV. Cap. 26. 
 t " Bertus," says Bede, " vastavit gentem innocentem misere, 
 et nationi Anglorum amicissimam." 
 
134 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Soon after this defeat of the Saxons, Adamnanus, the 
 abhott of Hy, was sent from the Scottish isles to Alfrid, 
 who had succeeded his brother on the throne of Northum- 
 bria, to demand satisfaction for the outrage, which was 
 immediately granted by that prince. 
 
 The Irish records mention some other invasions by the 
 Welch and Picts which took place during this age, most 
 probably by the encouragement or instigation of some of 
 the native princes, whose ambition or revenge induced them 
 to meditate designs so inimical to the interests of their 
 own country. Fionachta reigned twenty years, and was 
 killed in 695, when he was succeeded by Longseach the 
 grandson of Donald the second. 
 
 This monarch's reign, which continued for nine years, 
 was disturbed by further inroads of the Welch. On the 
 first occasion they were successful in carrying off their 
 plunder, but having subsequently returned they were met 
 by the Ultonians at a place called Magh Cullin, and almost 
 cut to pieces. His reign, however, terminated in the usual 
 way, as he was killed in A. D. 704, at the battle of Car- 
 min, which he fought with Kellach, the son of Kagallach, 
 king of Connaught. His successor, Congal Kinmagher, 
 was his cousin and reigned seven years, during which time 
 he gave many signal proofs of the badness of his heart as 
 well as of the weakness of his intellect. 
 
 The interposition of St. Moling in favour of the Lage- 
 nians, it appears, brought only a temporary relief to that 
 unhappy and cruelly oppressed people : for subse- 
 quently to the expulsion of their foreign enemies, Congal 
 the monarch forced them to accept of some new regulations of 
 his own, which, it seems, were as oppressive as the former. 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. 135 
 
 He is also said to have burned tlie famous religious estab- 
 lishment at Kildare, and to have been during the whole 
 of his reign an unrelenting persecutor of the clergy. His 
 death, which took place in the year 711, was sudden, but 
 from what cause we are not informed. 
 
 Fergall, his successor, followed in his footsteps in his 
 treatment of the Lagenians ; and for the purpose of reviv- 
 ing his claim to the vexatious tribute, he invaded Leinster 
 at the head of an army consisting of twenty-one thousand 
 chosen men. Morrogh Mac Broin, the king of that pro- 
 vince, having had no previous notice of such an invasion, 
 was able to muster only nine thousand, with which he en- 
 gaged the monarch's forces at Almhuin, and defeated them 
 with incredible slaughter, the monarch himself, with some 
 of his nobility, being numbered among the slain. 
 
 Fogarty, the next sovereign reigned but one year, when 
 he was killed by Kimbaoth, his rival and successor, and 
 he in his turn met the same fate at the battle of Drum 
 Curran in three years afterwards by the hand of Flaherty, 
 the son of Longseach, who succeeded him. To the mag. 
 nanimity of this monarch Hugh IV. surnamed Allan, owed 
 his elevation to the throne. Having enjoyed the monarchy 
 for the space of seven years, and without any cause but an 
 inward conviction of its propriety, Flaherty resigned the 
 crown with its cares and its honours to a Tyrone prince, 
 over whom he had been victorious in the field ; and sacri- 
 ficed the future grandeur of his family to the prospect of 
 serving his country by lessening the number of competitors 
 for the throne.* 
 
 » O'Con. Dissert, p. 215, 
 
136 fllSTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 From this period a new order of government took place 
 by alternate succession in two royal families, for two hun- 
 dred and sixty-eight years, in the race of the Clan Colmans 
 newly established, and in that of the Kinel Eogans newly 
 restored. Hugh Allan's reign commenced in 734, and lasted 
 nine years. The tax, known by the name of St. Patrick's 
 Revenue, and which was afterwards collected through- 
 out the kingdom, has been ascribed to this monarch acting 
 in concert with Cathall king of Munster, who made this ar- 
 rangement better for the support of the clergy, as tithes were 
 unknown at the time in Ireland. Hugh was, however, cut off 
 in a battle near Kells, and was succeeded by Donald III, who 
 governed the kingdom for the space of twenty years, but 
 whose reign was attended with no event of national impor- 
 tance. He had the unusual good fortune to die a natural 
 death, and was succeeded in the year 763 by Niall II, sur- 
 named Frassach. But this prince, it is said, finding him- 
 self unable to repress the factions that prevailed in the 
 provinces, like his predecessor Flaherty, resigned the crown 
 in the eighth year of his reign, and died at the monastery 
 of Hy, A. D. 778, where he was buried in the tomi) of the 
 kings of Ireland.* 
 
 A variety of uncommon phenomena, which are said to 
 have taken place about this time, were viewed by the cre- 
 dulous and superstitious as formidable indications of ap- 
 proaching judgments, and as harbingers of those calamities 
 by which the Irish nation was subsequently so long and so 
 grievously afflicted. We are told that in the reign of 
 Hugh Slaney the appearance of fleets and armies was seen 
 
 * O'Hal. Hist., B. IX, Chap. V. 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. l37 
 
 in the heavens; that at a subsequent period a monstrous 
 serpent seemed to float in the air: but in the reign 
 of Niall Frassach those calamities were announced as 
 making a nearer approach by a shower of blood, which fell 
 at Magh Laighion. This is said to have been followed by 
 dreadful earthquakes in different parts of the island ; and 
 to these succeeded so severe a famine as to carry off num- 
 bers of the inhabitants. 
 
 During the reign of Donchad, or Donogh^ who was 
 chosen to succeed to the throne on the resignation of Niall, 
 and who enjoyed that dignity for the space of twenty- 
 seven years, he subdued by arms the rebellious provinces 
 which his predecessor could not reclaim by milder mea- 
 sures. His administration lasted till the year 797, when 
 he was succeeded by Hugh V., surnamed Ornidhe, the 
 son of Niall Frassach. Among many of the regulations 
 drawn up by this monarch, was an order in the convention 
 of the states, for exempting the clergy in future, from that 
 military service which they had always been obliged to 
 perform in the time of his predecessors. But his other 
 designs for the good of his country were frustrated by the 
 factious temper evinced in the provinces, and were reduced 
 to practice only when he was able by the superiority of his 
 arms to force his refractory subjects into obedience to his 
 will. 
 
 During the civil commotions, an invasion of the Isle of 
 Rechrin to the north of the county of Antrim, by some 
 foreign pirates, is noticed in the annals of Ulster, and, 
 according to Usher* these were the first Danish invaders, 
 whose cruelty and oppression, at a subsequent period, form 
 
 958. 
 
138 iiisTOiiY OS' Ireland. 
 
 such a prominent feature in the history of Ireland. The 
 divided state of the nation and the clironic anarchy, both 
 political and social, which so long reigned in it, gave them 
 a decided advantage over the Irish people, which they did 
 not want either courage or skill to improve until they had 
 made themselves masters of nearly the whole island. 
 
 This rapid sketch of the Irish monarchy, anterior to the 
 northern invasion, contains most of what can be gleaned of 
 an authentic nature from the annals of this period ; and 
 will be fcrund to justify what we have already stated 
 respecting many of the kings of Ireland, that they have 
 left nothing behind them except their names and most 
 frequently the record of their premarure death. 
 
 If it be true that the confusions manifested in the out- 
 ward condition of a state are but the reflex of the moral 
 disorders which exist in the minds of the citizens, it might 
 be fairly concluded that society in Ireland at this period 
 was thoroughly demoralized ; but such an inference would 
 be manifestly contrary to matter of fact. No country in 
 Europe at this time contained within it more sterling and 
 enlightened piety than was to be found amongst the clergy 
 and laity of this island. Their religious establishments 
 — their schools and colleges, and their evangelical labours 
 in other countries, evince that from whatever cause the 
 disorders which afflicted the people might have sprung, 
 they had not their origin in any peculiar state of demor- 
 alization to which they had been reduced. Perhaps if the 
 annalists had been more particular in giving us the circum- 
 stances which may be considered as the mainsprings of 
 the events which were continually taking place, we might 
 be enabled to form a more correct judgment on the real 
 
CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. 139 
 
 state of every particular case. But little that is worthy 
 of record can be extracted from the mutilated history of 
 an age in which the political concerns of the country are so 
 obviously placed in the back ground, and ecclesiastical insti- 
 tutions alone occupy a position so prominently conspicuous. 
 The desolating current of time and the storms of revo- 
 lutionary changes that have so frequently overswept the 
 island, have carried away much of the evidence of the 
 ancient order of things, and left a fair field for the most 
 absurd and fanciful conjectures ; whilst the legendary tradi 
 lions of saints, and the establishment of religious founda- 
 tions are all that remain to fill up the chasms that appear 
 in Irish history. These, however, when divested of that 
 miraculous and incredible character which they have as- 
 sumed in the hands of the mediaeval writers, present a pleas- 
 ing contrast with the frightful picture of party rage, intes- 
 tine wars, and local distractions, which we are still able to 
 perceive as occupying a place in the politics of the country. 
 The anomalous combination of extreme barbarism with 
 high literary and intellectual acquirements which the his- 
 tory of Ireland presents at this period, would almost seem 
 to cast a doubt on its authenticity, were it not that we have 
 such incontestible evidence of both the one and the other, as 
 to set at defiance all the cavils of both prejudice and scep- 
 ticism. The rancorous malignity of contending chieftains, 
 the desolating incursions made by one rival prince upon 
 the persons and properties of the subjects of another, and 
 the unrelenting spirit of revenge which seems to have per- 
 vaded most classes of the laity, afibrd a melancholy demon- 
 stration of the former: and, not only the testimony of 
 foreign writers, as well as of the Irish themselves, but thg 
 
140 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 numerous monuments which the ruins of Glendalogh, 
 Clonmacnoise, and many other places in Ireland, present to 
 the eye of the traveller, evince beyond doubt, that at this 
 period a considerable degree of refinement and civilization 
 must have been attained by those who had the direction of 
 ecclesiastical affairs.* 
 
 * " The ancient fields of Glendaloch and Clonmacnoise, the 
 venerable remains of Kildare, and hundreds of other venerable 
 ruins, confirm the legends and traditions of ancient times ; 
 although the dwellings of civil strength, the homes of princes, 
 the palaces of monarchs, and the halls of ancient national power 
 have melted away, as the flesh is mouldered from the bones of 
 other generations." Wills's Lives, pp. 159, 160. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Irish Church till the co3imencement of the 
 Ninth Century. 
 
 The ecclesiastical constitution of the ancient Irish, which 
 they maintained as long as their monarchy lasted, was 
 most obviously domestic and independent of any foreign 
 jurisdiction. They acknowledged no superior but the great 
 Head of the Church ;^ nor had they any rule of faith 
 and practice but the written word of God. 
 
 From St. Patrick's ordinations, as well as from the whole 
 history of his mission, it is also manifest that the Irish 
 Church was originally episcopal ; its hierarchy including 
 bishops, presbyters, and deacons, or the three catholic 
 orders in the Christian ministry. It is true there were also 
 sub-deacons in it, but this order was only a preparatory 
 step to the deaconship. 
 
 The number of Bishops at this early period in Ireland 
 is almost incredible when we consider the extent of the 
 island. But it is to be remembered that the country was 
 divided into innumerable petty toparchies, and that every 
 chieftain had a Bishop or more to preside over the church 
 that he had established amongst his people.f Besides, the 
 
 * Unum Caput Christum, unum ducem Patricium habebant." 
 Vid. Usser, 
 
 t St. Bernard observes at a later period respecting the Iriah 
 Church : — " Mutabantur et multiplicabantur episcopi pro libitu 
 Metropolitani ; ita ut unus episcopatus uno non esset contentus, 
 sed singulae pene Ecclesiae singulos haberent episcopos." -S". 
 Bernard. Vit. Malach. p. 1937.— But there were no metropolitan^ 
 in the ancient Irish Church, 
 
142 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Irish prelates were in the habit of conferring the episcopal 
 order on some of their most eminent divines without their 
 appointment to any particular see. This was frequently 
 the case with the heads of schools and the founders of 
 monasteries, so that the number of Bishops in Ireland, it 
 is said, amounted sometimes to three hundred. 
 
 To the episcopal order alone the great offices of religion 
 were exclusively confined ; and therefore as the extension 
 of Christianity was thought to depend upon their multi- 
 plication, every church in its infantile state required a 
 greater number of bishops than when it became more 
 matured and was regularly established. Besides, as the 
 episcopal dignity was lessened in the public estimation by 
 the number of village bishops that existed in early times, 
 their ordination was at length restrained by the canons 
 of difierenf councils. But as these canons had no opera- 
 tion in Ireland, and as no foreign power had as yet been 
 acknowledged by the Irish, as having any authority to 
 compel them to submission or conformity, they continued 
 to preserve the plan of episcopacy established amongst 
 them by their first evangelical instructors, and which they 
 at length relinquished with considerable reluctance. 
 
 The number of Bishops that St. Patrick himself is said 
 to have consecrated during his residence in Ireland might 
 appear somewhat surprising on a superficial acquaintance 
 with the history of the infant church in his time. Dis- 
 cretion had guided this eminent missionary in all his pro- 
 ceedings ; and his care to avoid whatever could alarm the 
 national pride, or alter the established policy of the king- 
 dom, increased extensively that influence which his piety 
 and zeal had given him over the first fruits of his labours. 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 143 
 
 Besides the present possessor of a sacred dignity amongst 
 the Druids, a coadjutor, who was also to succeed him, was 
 at the same time nominated ; and in imitation of this cus- 
 tom, as soon as the Christian bishop supplanted the Druid 
 flamen in his station and dignity, he also had his assistant 
 and successor appointed ; by which means, on every demise, 
 the new pastor was well acquainted with his flock and 
 with his own duty. He was called a Comharba, or partner 
 in the church lands, and ranked as a bishop. , Of this 
 order of men several are said to have died in the same see, 
 during the time of St. Patrick's ministry in the island. So 
 that when we reflect on the length of his mission, and the 
 number of those titular bishops that must have been 
 appointed during that time, the consecrations ascribed to 
 him will not appear either improbable or surprising. 
 
 The mode in which the Irish Bishops conducted the 
 government and supervision of the Church is illustrated by 
 the antiquities of some of the most ancient sees that were 
 established in this early age. The Church of Aghaboe is 
 noticed by Adamnanus in the seventh century ; and it is 
 probable that its circumstances were similar to those of 
 several others existing at that age. Twelve surrounding 
 rectories within an irregular figure, containing about sixty 
 thousand acres, were subjected to its inspection. Kesiding 
 in the mother church with a few clerks, the Bishop and 
 his assistants were perfectly able to attend to all the sacred 
 ministrations to be performed in his diocese. For this 
 purpose the people were accustomed to assemble at places 
 marked by stone crosses, which became the site of so many 
 churches at a subsequent time. 
 
 When a bishopric was once erected, the vanity and ambi- 
 
144 HISTORY OF IRELAND, 
 
 tion of the sept under whose patronage it was held, were 
 enlisted for its perpetuation ; nor was the power of the 
 Roman pontiflF himself able, at the time that his authority 
 was acknowledged in the island, to divest them of this 
 right, or to dissolve a see which it was the interest of the 
 sept to preserve.^ 
 
 According to St. Bernard, tithes were not established in 
 the Irish Church ; but besides the tax called St. Patrick's 
 revenue, the clergy were probably supported by those obla- 
 tions which in primitive times were given in lieu of tithes.f 
 Most of the Irish sees having neither cathedrals, deans, or 
 chapters, were deambulatory. Parishes had their beginning 
 from the suppression of the chor-episcopal sees about the 
 middle of the twelfth century. And, as soon as parochial 
 churches were erected, a portion of the ecclesiastical 
 revenue was set apart for keeping them in repair and for 
 other purposes connected with divine service. 
 
 As the Church in Ireland was episcopal, so it was also 
 manifestly independent of any foreign jurisdiction. The 
 controversy about Easter, the ecclesiastical tonsure, and the 
 Three Chapters, afforded her ecclesiastics an opportunity of 
 protesting against any infringement upon their rights, and 
 of evincing their determination to resist the subjugation of 
 their hierarchy to any extra-national power or authority. 
 Several efforts were made at different times to break down 
 that independence, but they always proved unavailing. A 
 
 * After the consolidation of Dublin and Glendalough in the 
 12th century, we find the O'Tooles, the original proprietaries, 
 subsequently retained the title and right of presentation to the 
 bishoprick for upwards of three hundred years. Led. Ant. 
 
 t Tanquam decimas ex fructibus. — Cyp. Epist., 64. 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 145 
 
 tract, addressed by Giselbert, bishop of Limerick, A. D. 
 1090, who was appointed the Pope's legate to the dissi- 
 dent bishops and presbyters of Ireland, was manifestly 
 intended to induce them to comply with the requisitions of 
 the pontiff, and to instruct them in the discipline of the 
 Church of Eome. In the prologue he says, *' at the request 
 and even command of many of you, dearly beloved, I have 
 endeavoured to set down in writing the canonical custom 
 in saying of hours and performing the office of the whole 
 ecclesiastical order ; not presumptuously but through desire 
 to serve your most godly command ; to the end that those 
 divers and schismatical orders wherewith, in a manner, all 
 Ireland is deluded, may give place to one Catholic and 
 Eoman office."* 
 
 In perfect unison with this attempt was that which had 
 been made, a little before, by Lanfranc, the archbishop of 
 Canterbury, to induce the Irish monarch Turlogh to exer- 
 cise his authority in bringing about a conformity between 
 the services then used in the Irish Church and those of the 
 Koman communion. He complained to Turlogh of the 
 discipline of the Irish, and desired him to assemble a synod 
 of his Bishops and clergy for the purpose of making those 
 changes which were necessary to assimilate the Irish to the 
 Roman Church. But whilst the archbishop of Canterbury 
 was thus interfering with the concerns of the Irish, he was 
 furnishing to posterity a pregnant proof of the independence 
 of both their church and monarchy, and intimating that 
 neither their ecclesiastical nor civil institutions were subject 
 to the control o"f the papal legate or even of the pope him- 
 
 * Vide Led. Ant., pp. 433, 434. 
 
146 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 self. In matters of discipline, the Irish boldy opposed the 
 custom of their ancestors to the authority of Rome, whilst in 
 faith and morals they refused to acknowledge any authori- 
 tative standard but the written word of God. They main- 
 tained and practised the free and unrestricted use of the 
 Holy Scriptures, inculcated the efficacy of the sacrifice and 
 intercession of Christ, without any intermixture of the 
 superstitions of the dark ages — celebrated divine service 
 in a variety of forms and were governed by a hierarchy com- 
 posed of married men, who acknowledged no allegiance to 
 any power except to their respective princes. 
 
 Notwithstanding the number of pious and learned men that 
 Ireland produced, and who obtained the title of saints during 
 the first ages of Christianity in that country, the monks of 
 St. Columba, from whose ranks they were generally drawn, 
 never dedicated their churches to any of those saints, 
 although of their own order, but to the Holy Trinity.* 
 Spelman mentions his having a psalter, written ,about the 
 middle of the eighth century, with a prayer annexed to 
 many of the psalms, and that there were one hundred and 
 seventy-one such prayers in the book, yet, that not one of them 
 was addressed to the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles, or any 
 other of the saints.f 
 
 There is a curious old catalogue of Irish saints preserved 
 by archbishop Usher, J; which was probably written by one of 
 the remnant of the Culdees sometime in the twelfth century, 
 and which is extremely valuable as it presents us with an 
 epitome of the ancient ecclesiastical history of the country) 
 
 * Dalrymple's Collec. for Scotland. P. 248. 
 t Spel. Cone, Vol. I, p. 219. 
 % Usser, Primord, p. 913, . 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 147 
 
 and exhibits something of the spirit and practices of the 
 clergy during the age to which it applies. 
 
 The first class, the writer states, were principally of the 
 episcopal order, and, " were the holiest." " They had one 
 head who was Christ ; one leader who was St. Patrick ; and 
 one tonsure from ear to ear. They had one mass,^ one 
 celebration, and one Easter, the fourteenth of the month 
 after the vernal equinox. Whoever was anathematized by 
 one Church was so by all. They did not reject the atten- 
 dance and company of women, because being founded on 
 Christ their rock they did not fear the wind of temptation." 
 They continued, he says, from A. D. 433 to 534. 
 
 The second class was composed chiefly of presbyters, and 
 were about three hundred in number. " They had one 
 head which was our Lord ; they celebrated divers masses, 
 and had various rules ; they rejected the society of women, 
 separating them from their mon asteries . " T hese continued 
 from A. D. 534 to 598, and, the writer says, "were less 
 holy." 
 
 The third was also made up chiefly of presbyters, having 
 but few bishops in it. " They inhabited deserts, lived on 
 herbs, water, and alms : possessed nothing of their own : 
 had different rules, masses, and tonsures, some with their 
 
 * In the ancient churches, the public services, at which the 
 catechumens were permitted to be present, were called Missa 
 catechumenorum, because at the close of them proclamation was 
 made thus : Ite, rnissa est, sc. ecclesia. Then followed the com- 
 munion service, which was called missa fidelium ; and which 
 under the name of missa, or the mass, still constitutes the prin- 
 cipal part of public worship in the Roman Catholic Churches." 
 Murdoch. It is evident that Mass in the passage signifies merelj 
 the Cursus ox Liturgy used in the Church. 
 
148 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 crowns shaven, others with long hair. They celebrated 
 the paschal feast, some on the fourteenth, others on the six- 
 teenth of the month ;" and are said to have been " holy." 
 
 If the writer of this catalogue was a Culdee, he acted 
 agreeably to the characteristic uprightness of his order, by 
 placing Columba in the second class. But whether he 
 belonged to that order or not, it is obvious that he did not 
 entertain very high ideas of clerical celibacy, or he would 
 have exalted the second and third classes of saints over the 
 first : but it appears that he thought them very inferior in 
 sanctity to those ecclesiastics who " did not reject the atten- 
 dance and company of women." 
 
 Learning and zeal, in the meantime, still continued to 
 give lustre to the establishments of the Irish Church, and 
 in nothing was this more clearly exhibited than in the mis- 
 sionary spirit which seems at this time to have pervaded 
 the whole hierarchy. 
 
 About the latter end of the sixth century, Columbanus, 
 a native of Ireland, who had been educated at Bangor, under 
 St. Congall, with twelve companions selected out of the 
 same house, emigrated to France, and founded for himself 
 and his followers the monastery of Luxeuil, in a thick part 
 of the forest, at the foot of the Vosges ; to which was after- 
 wards added that of Fontaines,* so named from the abun- 
 dance of springs existing in the neighbourhood. In this 
 retreat, notwithstanding the Roman custom was observed 
 amongst those by whom he was surrounded, he continued 
 to celebrate the paschal festival according to the practice of 
 his own church. This dissent from the usages of the neigh- 
 bouring clergy could not fail to bring upon him the censure 
 
 * Fleury's Hist. Eccles., Tom. VIII. pp. 18, 19, 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 149 
 
 of the Gallic ecclesiastics, and they complained to Gregory 
 the Great of the schismatical conduct of this famous Hi- 
 bernian. Several councils were therefore called, and Colum- 
 banus was cited to appear before them ; but he refused to 
 abandon the practice of his ancestors. He appealed, how- 
 ever, to the Koman pontiff with great learning, modesty, 
 and discretion, defended his own opinions and those of 
 his countrymen, and at the same time wrote to the Gaul- 
 ish bishops assembled in council. He observed that the 
 practice of the Irish Church was established by St. JTohn, 
 the beloved disciple, by St. Philip and the Churches of Asia : 
 that it was proved by the calculations of Anatolius, con- 
 firmed by St. Jerome; and adds, that " whosoever opposes 
 his authority to that of Jerome, will be rejected as an her- 
 etic by the Western Church." But as he still remained 
 obstinate in this particular, he was ruthlessly expelled from 
 his abbey, which he had possessed for twenty years, and 
 banished out of the country. 
 
 It. was not, however, solely because of his dissent from 
 the Roman Church, that he was treated with such severity, 
 as his faithfulness in reproving the vices of Thierry, the 
 young king of Burgundy, had a considerable share in 
 exciting that persecution against him which was carried to 
 such an extremity. 
 
 Brunehaut, the queen dowager, a wicked and vindictive 
 woman, appears to have been the principal agent in exciting 
 the malice and rousing the resentment of her son against 
 this faithful and intrepid champion of religion and morality. 
 On one occasion, when she saw him entering the royal 
 courts upon some business with the king, she brought four 
 of the illegitimate children of the latter to meet him^ and 
 
150 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 at the same time saying, with the most consummate hypo- 
 crisy, " They are the king's children, and are come to ask 
 your blessing." " These children, '* replied Columbanus, 
 " shall never reign : they are the offspring of unlawful sen- 
 sual indulgence. " This stern reply of the abbot roused 
 the resentment of the queen ; and by way of retaliation she 
 succeeded in having some of the privileges of the Irish 
 monasteries withdrawn. But this was not sufficient to 
 satisfy her vindictive spirit, and she soon found other means 
 by which to bring Columbanus into disrepute with the 
 king. The rules of his monasteries were naturally in ac- 
 cordance with those of the house in which he had been 
 educated himself; and by one of these access to the inte- 
 rior of the monastery was restricted. The queen, being 
 aware of this, induced Thierry to assert his right of en- 
 trance. At the head of some of his nobles he repaired to 
 Luxeuil ; forced his way as far as the Refectory ; and, 
 addressing Columbanus, he said, " If you desire to derive 
 any benefit from our bounty, these places must be thrown 
 open to every comer." To which the abbot, with charac- 
 teristic intrepidity, replied, "If you endeavour to violate the 
 discipline here established, know that I dispense with 
 your presence ; and if you now come hither to disturb the 
 monasteries of the servants of God, I tell you that your 
 kingdom shall be destroyed, and with it all your royal 
 race." 
 
 Terrified by the denunciation of a man, whom he knew 
 to be a faithful minister of Christ, and reproached most 
 probably by his own conscience for the life of debauchery 
 and lewdness which he had been living, this semi-barbar- 
 ous potentate withdrew from the monastery ; and, instead 
 
iTHi: CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY.' 151 
 
 of uttering menaces as might naturally be expected, lie 
 only observed, " I perceive you hope that I shall give you 
 the crown of martyrdom ; but I am not so unwise as to 
 commit so heinous a crime. As your system, however, dif- 
 fers from that of all other times, it is but right that you should 
 return to the place from whence you came." Accordingly 
 he was subsequently driven from his monastery by a party 
 of soldiers sent for that purpose by his persecutors ; and 
 was accompanied by such of the brethren as were Irishmen 
 and Britons ; none of the rest, though willing, being permit- 
 ted to follow him in his exile. 
 
 After travelling through various parts of France and 
 Germany with his companions, he retired at length into 
 Italy, in order to avoid falling into the hands of his per- 
 secutors again. Arriving at Milan, at the court of Agi- 
 lulph, king of the Lombards, he was courteously received 
 by that prince and his amiable consort Theodelinda. 
 Under the auspices of these two royal personages, who at 
 the time were considered as schismatics by the Koman 
 party, he selected a spot amidst the Apennines, and found- 
 ed there the monastery of Babbio; where he passed the 
 brief remainder of his days, as he died on the twenty-first 
 of November, A.D. 615. He wrote commentaries on seve- 
 ral of the Psalms, a book against the Arians, several tracts 
 on the Paschal Controversy, thirteen Homilies, some epis- 
 tles and poems, a Kule for Monks, and two letters to Boni- 
 face III. His severity in addressing the pontiff proved 
 that he had no great respect for the arrogant claims of 
 that ecclesiastic ; and he speaks of Vigilius, his predecessor, 
 with bitter and, in some respects, deserved reproach. Be- 
 sides these productions of his pen, he wrote an apology 
 
152 HISTORY OF IRELANi). 
 
 for himself, addressed to the provincial synod in France, 
 before whom he was cited to appear for his tenacious adhe- 
 rence to the customs of the Irish Church. 
 
 Of this celebrated and distinguished divine, both Cave 
 and Du Pin speak in the highest terms. They represent 
 him as a man of singular simplicity and of unbending and 
 inflexible uprightness, which led him to censure with free- 
 dom and sometimes with asperity, the highest dignitaries 
 of the Church. Du Pin, who carefully examined, and with 
 his usual ability epitomized his Works, declares they are 
 written with much wisdom and elegance, and with a pro- 
 found knowledge of ecclesiastical history. 
 
 The next distinguished Irishman, in order of time, 
 though perhaps not inferior to this abbot in worth and learn- 
 ing, was Bishop Aidan, who for a considerable time was 
 an inmate of the monastery of Hy. To the missionary 
 exertions and pious care of this prelate, the conversion of 
 the Northumbrians in the north of England is, under God, 
 to be entirely ascribed. At the same time that Bede gives 
 him an excellent character, as a man of wonderful humi- 
 lity, great zeal and probity, as well as goodness of heart, 
 he adds that his zeal was without knowledge, because he 
 observed the paschal festival according to the custom of 
 his own country, and refused to submit to the authority 
 of the Bishop of Rome. But, notwithstanding this censure 
 passed upon him by the Anglo-Saxon monk, nothing can 
 exceed the commendations which he has given him for 
 holiness of life. He governed the church of Northumbria 
 for almost seventeen years ; erected schools for the instruction 
 of men and children in learning and religion ; wrote com- 
 mentaries on the Scriptures^ sermons, and homilies j and 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 153 
 
 was not only an honour to his native country, but a great 
 benefactor to the English nation, as well as an ornament 
 of the age in which he lived. His ministry was personally 
 attended by Oswald, the king of Northumbria ; and as he 
 was but imperfectly acquainted with the Anglo-Saxon 
 tongue, the king himself, who at an earlier age had spent 
 much of his time in Ireland and learned the language of 
 that country, became his interpreter to the people. Num- 
 bers of Culdees continually arrived to his assistance from 
 Ireland and Hy ; and such was their success that the cross 
 of the Redeemer triumphed over the impure rites of Wo- 
 den, and Christianity was established throughout the king- 
 dom of Northumbria. Aidan died A. D. 651, and went 
 to that reward which awaits the faithful labourer in the 
 vineyard of his Master. 
 
 Finan, another native of Ireland, was called from the 
 same monastery of Hy, to succeed Aidan in the see of 
 Holy Island, which had become vacant by the death of the 
 latter ; and while in this charge he was the honoured in- 
 strument of the conversion of Sigebert, the third king of 
 the East Saxons, and of the retinue that accompanied him 
 to the Court of Oswy. His instructions had also the 
 same success with Peada, a prince of Mercia, and his 
 attendants, with whom he sent some of his clergy to preach 
 to the people of that kingdom. But as the old controversy 
 about Easter was still carried on between the Romanists 
 and the members of the ancient church, and as Finan 
 could not be brought to conform to the Roman custom, a 
 countryman of his own who had been bred in France 
 where that custom prevailed, was considered the most 
 eligible instrument to effect a change in his mind, and 
 
154 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 was therefore sent to him for that purpose. This attempt, 
 however, proved ineffectual ; and Finan, instead of being 
 convinced, was still more firmly established in his own 
 opinion. He wrote a treatise on the ancient usage of the 
 Passover ; was a pious and exemplary man ; and departed 
 tHs life, A. D. 661. 
 
 Furseus, a monk, who, according to the predilection of 
 those times, had founded three monasteries in his native 
 country, went over to England to preach the gospel among 
 the Anglo-Saxons ; and in his labours met with great suc- 
 cess among the inhabitants of East Anglia. Bede extols 
 him very highly, and Sigebert the East Anglian king, who 
 was, as we have already observed, a Christian himself gave 
 him a courteous reception, and promoted with all his in- 
 fluence the object of his mission. He founded a monastery 
 in Suffolk which was largely endowed at several times by 
 the East Anglian kings. He next retired to France 
 where he erected the monastery of Lagny in the Diocese 
 of Paris, near the Seine. He wrote a book on the Monas- 
 tic Life ; and an Irish prophecy is ascribed to him, but 
 without any foundation. 
 
 Dinma was another Irish ecclesiastic who made some 
 figure in the Anglo-Saxon Church during the seventh cen- 
 tury. He had received episcopal consecration at the hands 
 of Bishop Finan, and took charge of the episcopate of 
 Mercia and the East Angles, which he conducted prosper- 
 ously for several years : after which he was succeeded by 
 Ceolla, another Culdee, who for some reason resigned his 
 charge and retired to the monastery in Hy. Indeed it is 
 principally to the apostolic labours of the Culdean mission- 
 aries that the northern English were indebted for their con- 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 155 
 
 version ; whilst learning and evangelical truth were propa- 
 gated by their means throughout various other countries 
 on the continent of Europe.* 
 
 But whilst the Irish divines were thus engaged in dis- 
 pensing the word of life to their fellow-men, the Romanists 
 were indefatigable in their zeal to make proselytes to their 
 own views on those points which had been previously the 
 subject of so much controversy. For this purpose Honorius 
 the Roman pontiff, addressed a letter to the bishops, pres- 
 byters, doctors, and abbots of Ireland, exhorting them to 
 submission, and a conformity with the practice of the Uni- 
 versal Church. Induced by this epistle to reconsider the 
 part which they had hitherto taken, a synod of the clergy 
 was held at Legh-Lene, near the river Barrow. Lasrian 
 appeared to defend the Roman custom, called in the records 
 of the synod, the neio ordinance; and Munnu, the founder 
 of an abbey near Wexford, warmly supported the oJd rules. 
 The only action, however, taken by this meeting was to 
 appoint certain persons to visit Rome in order to ascertain 
 if anything further could be alleged to induce the Irish to 
 alter the established customs of their chnrch. These dele- 
 gates remained three years in that city, and during their 
 residence there were converted to the Roman custom. On 
 their return, to the surprise and mortification of their 
 countrymen, it was found, that they had become the most 
 zealous champions of several other innovations, as well as 
 
 * Dr. Lingard, without once intimating that these illustrious 
 men were all natives of Ireland, calls them by the ambiguous 
 title of " Scottish Monk," It is true they were so, but they were 
 Scots from Ireland ; a distinction always made by French and 
 other continental writers. 
 
156 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 of the adoption of the Roman custom in celebrating the 
 Easter festival. 
 
 At this time Cummian, surnamed Albus, or the WTiitCy 
 who is said to have been a descendant of the same family 
 with St. Columba, retired from every other pursuit, in the 
 monastery of Hy, to examine whatever had been advanced 
 on this subject by Hebrews, Egyptians, G-recks, and Latins. 
 His tract written upon this occasion would, at any time, be 
 esteemed argumentative and learned. Besides his examin- 
 ation of the various cycles that had been previously in use, 
 he quotes the canons of the Church in such a manner as 
 to show that he was well acquainted with ecclesiastical dis- 
 cipline. This treatise, short as it is, comprehends a variety 
 of learned subjects, and clearly points out the studies of the 
 Irish at this period ; their advances in literature ; and how 
 well their libraries must have been supplied with books on 
 every subject worthy of investigation. But the extensive 
 erudition of this remarkable man had but very little effect 
 upon the men whom he wished to convince. The monks of 
 Hy resented with indignation his defection from the usages 
 of his ancestors, and treated him as an apostate and a 
 heretic,^ because he had adopted what they deemed to be 
 the innovations of the Boman school. 
 
 Nor did any opportunity occur in which the clergy of 
 the Irish Church failed to discover the same irreconcileable 
 hostility to innovations whenever they were made on their 
 ecclesiastical customs. Dagan, an Irish bishop, who was 
 reputed a man of great piety, and who had taken an active 
 part in the Easter controversy, in a visit which he paid to 
 
 * Usser. Syllog. Epist. Hib. Epist. xi. Harris' Writers, p. 31, 
 O'Hal. Hist. Vol. III., p. 115. 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTUEY. 157 
 
 archbishop Laurence^ the successor of Augustine in the see 
 of Canterbury, finding him opposed to the practice of the 
 Irish in the celebration of Easter, refused not only to eat at 
 one table with him, but even in the same house.^ In 
 adopting this apparent want of toleration, the Irish prelate 
 was acting only in conformity with the canonsf of his own 
 church, and consequently it may be inferred that the Irish 
 considered all their opponents on this controversy as under 
 sentence of excommunication. 
 
 Nor was this the isolated act of one over-zealous eccle- 
 siastic, as both the Britons and Irish acted invariably on 
 the same principle. We have the testimony of Bede that 
 " the Britons would no more communicate with the Anglo- 
 Saxons than with pagans. "| " The British priests," says 
 Aldhelm, " puffed up with a conceit of their own purity, 
 do exceedingly abhor communion with us, insomuch that 
 they will neither join in prayers with us in the church, nor 
 in communion, nor will they enter into society with us at 
 ^table ; the fragments we leave after refection, they will not 
 touch, but throw them to dogs. The cups also, out of 
 which we have drunk, they will not use until they have 
 cleansed them with sand and ashes. They refuse all civil 
 salutations, and will not give us the kiss of pious fraternity. 
 Moreover if any of us go to make our abode among them, 
 they will not vouchsafe to admit us till we are compelled to 
 spend forty days in penance." 
 
 * Bede, Lib. II. Cap. 4. 
 
 t " A communione et mensa amissa et pace." Again : — " Qui- 
 cunque clericus ab aliquo excommunicatus fuerit, et alius enm 
 susceperit ambo coaequali poenitentia utantur." 
 
 t Bede, Lib. II. Cap. 10. 
 
158 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 This controversy respecting the paschal solemnity, as may 
 be supposed, proved a considerable obstacle to the labours 
 of the Irish missionaries in other countries ; and, after it 
 had been carried on for a considerable time, a synod was 
 called, A. D. 661, at a monastery named Streaneshalch,* 
 in the kingdom of Northumbria, to determine whether the 
 ancient discipline of the British and Irish churches should 
 be retained, or implicit submission should be enjoined 
 in reference to the Roman custom. Wilfrid, an ^leve of 
 Rome, supported the latter, as Colman, a native of Ireland 
 and educated among the Culdees at Hy, who was then 
 bishop of Lindisfern, maintained the custom of his ances- 
 tors. " The Easter I keep," said Colman, " I received 
 from my elders, who sent me bishop hither ; the same which 
 all our forefathers, men beloved of God, are known to have 
 kept, and which they celebrated after the same manner : 
 and, that the same may not appear to any contemptible or 
 worthy to be rejected, it is the same which St. John the 
 evangelist and the churches over which he presided, 
 observed." f 
 
 This intrepid champion who appeared in the synod at 
 the head of the Irish clergy to defend the custom of his 
 forefathers, having been defeated by a majority who took part 
 with the king when the latter declared himself in favor of 
 the Roman usages, resigned his bishopric in disgust, rather 
 than swerve from the discipline of his own church or 
 acknowledge the authority of foreign decrees, and returned 
 to his native country with some English monks as well as 
 
 * This was the old name of Whitby. See Hody's Hist, of Eng. 
 Coun. Parti, p. 21. 
 fBede, Lib. III., Cap. 25. 
 
THE CHURCH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 159 
 
 all the Irish whom he had brought thither, and spent the 
 remainder of his life at a place called Innisboffin. Here 
 he built a monastery for the monks who had accompanied 
 him ; but as some dispute arose between the Saxon and 
 Celtic inmates of this establishment, he erected another for 
 the English at Mayo. He wrote a book in defence of his 
 custom of keeping Easter ; another on the tonsure of eccle- 
 siastics; and an exhortation to the inhabitants of the 
 Hebrides. 
 
 Amongst the distinguished missionaries who were engaged 
 in preaching the gospel in Germany, during the eighth cen- 
 tury, was the celebrated Virgilius, a native of Ireland, and 
 whose real name was most probably Feargil, latinized into 
 that by which he was known on the continent.* Having quit- 
 ted his native land, he arrived in France, where he remained 
 for two years, and afterwards visited Bavaria. Here he 
 laboured for some time in his sacred calling, until a dispute 
 arose between him and Boniface, archbishop of Mentz? 
 whose jurisdiction then extended over that country, as well 
 as over many other parts of Germany. That prelate, who 
 had given orders that such as had received Baptism at the 
 hands of an ignorant priest should be re-baptized, because 
 the formula had been pronounced in bad Latin, was 
 opposed by Virgilius, who insisted that the validity of the 
 sacrament did not depend on the grammatical knowledge 
 of the officiating minister, provided he was duly ordained, 
 and had performed the office in the name of the Holy 
 Trinity. The priest, being ignorant of Latin, had used 
 the words : — " Baptizo te in nomine Patria, et Filia, et 
 Spiritua Sancta,'' instead of Fatris, Filii, et Spiritus 
 
 * Lanigan's Hist. Chap. XIX, Note 127. 
 
160 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Sanctis This difference of opinion between the Irish and 
 Saxon ecclesiastics led to an appeal to the Roman pontiff; 
 and Zachary had candour enough to decide in favour of the 
 former.* 
 
 This decision of the pontiff, which was praiseworthy, con- 
 sidering that Virgilius belonged to a church that did not 
 acknowledge his authority, together with the Irishman's 
 superior accomplishments as a scholar, inflamed the jealousy 
 and roused the resentment of Boniface, and with all the 
 bitterness of religious prejudice he carried on a persecution 
 against his rival. He denounced the Hibernian ecclesiastic 
 to the pope as a man who taught that many of the stars in 
 the heavens were habitable worlds ; that the earth was no 
 plane but of a globular form ; and that the very part of the 
 earth on which he trod had its antipodes ! The pope, in 
 his answer, which was written in the year 748, directed 
 that, if these facts were proved before a council, "Virgilius 
 should be degraded. But the Irish divine paid little regard 
 to the papal mandate; nor was he degraded, but was 
 first made Rector of St. Stephen's abbey, by Otilo, Duke 
 of Bavaria, and afterwards Bishop of Saltsburg. 
 
 It is remarkable, that what was called heresy in the 
 eighth century has in succeeding ages become the generally 
 received opinion ; and, in the present advanced state of 
 astronomical knowledge, the philosophy of the Irish in 
 this century corresponds with the system now adopted by 
 every man of real learning in the world. It is universally 
 admitted that the opinion maintained by Virgilius was no 
 other than the true doctrine of the antipodes, a doctrine 
 
 * Epist. Zachar. Vet. Ep. Hib. Sylloge. 
 
, THE CHUECH TILL THE NINTH CENTURY. 161 
 
 founded on the sphericity of the earth, and which, in our 
 days, even schoolboys are acquainted with ; but in that 
 age, it was entirely new to the learned men of the contin- 
 ent, and was taught only in the Irish schools. 
 
 The seventh and eighth centuries were brilliant periods 
 in the history of Irish literature : and we might multiply 
 biographical notices of the learned men of this age far 
 beyond the bounds which our present object would warrant. 
 But as our design is to give some idea of the state of learn- 
 ing at this early period in the Irish Church, as well as of the 
 zeal, piety, and extensive usefulness of her missionaries, 
 we must content ourselves with those details which we have 
 already laid before the reader ; and proceed to enter upon 
 a period the most calamitous and gloomy that the nation 
 had ever experienced from the first settlement of the island. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 First Invasion op the Northmen. 
 
 About the close of the eighth century, the reign of Hugh, 
 surnamed Oirnidhe, was marked by the dreadful devasta- 
 tions of those northern pirates who at that period became 
 so formidable io several of the nations of Europe. These 
 foreigners, to whom the names of Danes, Northmen, Ost- 
 men, and Easterlings were common, were a motley aggre- 
 gate of the descendants of the Goths, composed of Saxons, 
 Frisians, Livonians, Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes, whose 
 proximity to the German sea apd to the Baltic gave them an 
 early predilection for excursions on the watery element. 
 The different names by which they have been distinguished 
 prove that they were of various nations, and that they 
 differed from each other in complexion, as well as in their 
 respective manners and habits. 
 
 The early history of the Scandinavians, like that of most 
 other nations, is shrouded in darkness ; and, were it worth 
 investigation, could not be elicited without considerable 
 difficulty. Even the proceedings of Odin himself, though 
 the main incidents of his life are generally agreed upon, 
 are but dimly seen through the hazy medium of Scaldic 
 tradition, taken in connexion with the well-authenticated 
 history of other nations. 
 
 This chieftain, some time in the century immediately 
 preceding the Incarnation, had been forced to seek an asy- 
 lum in the frozen regions of the north, with a numerous 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 163 
 
 band of followers of Indo-Scythian extraction.^ The suc- 
 cess of Pompey and his victorious legions against Mithri- 
 dates, the king of Pontus, had obliged a number of fugi- 
 tives to escape from the districts of Armenia, Cappadocia, 
 Iberia, and other Persian provinces, and to withdraw to 
 the more impenetrable regions of Scythia, where they might 
 form settlements beyond the reach of their domineering 
 invaders. At the head of a powerful tribe of these fugi- 
 tives, a chieftain named Sigge had placed himself; and hav- 
 ing led them into the northern regions of Europe, he sub- 
 jugated the aborigines of each country, as he passed along, 
 and established his sons in the sovereignty of the different 
 kingdoms which he had conquered. Possessing both cour- 
 age and address, he gave, in this manner, kings to Saxony, 
 Westphalia, Franconia, and part of Kussia ; and having 
 proceeded as far as Scandinavia, he acquired absolute 
 dominion over Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Encouraged 
 by the success of his arms, and the dismay which pervaded 
 all the nations round the Baltic, he not only superseded 
 their ancient religion, which was probably Druidism, by 
 the introduction of that of his own country, but assuming 
 the title of Odin or Woden the supreme divinity of bat- 
 tle, he claimed and received divine honours from those 
 barbarous princes whom he had subjugated to his authority. 
 The object of Odin's institutions, as may be leai-ned from 
 the ancient religion of the Saxons and Scandinavians, was 
 to form the character of a warlike people, and to inspire 
 his followers with a contempt of death, as well as a predi- 
 lection for war and rapine. The substructure of his system 
 
 * Snorro's History of Norway. 
 
164 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 must have been laid in eastern mythology ; but the addi- 
 tions and enlargements of it, which originated with himself, 
 were such as to produce those effects that were intended by 
 his policy. It is said, that when about to die, Odin, having 
 resolved not to take his exit like inferior mortals, assembled 
 his sons and followers around him, and, in their presence, 
 inflicted on himself nine wounds in the form of a circle. 
 Thus having crowned his brilliant achievements by an exam- 
 ple of invincible fortitude, he informed them that he was 
 about to return into Scythia, in order to take his place at 
 the banquet of the gods, and that he would be ready to 
 receive there the souls of the brave who should die in the 
 field of battle, with that honour which was due to their 
 courage and intrepidity. 
 
 The subsequent history of the nations of the north, for 
 about eleven hundred years, is but imperfectly known. 
 Their principal employment was piracy and war ; and, as 
 Odin and his sons were the chief divinities, they were 
 taught to believe that the most pleasing sacrifice they could 
 offer them was the death of an enemy. Most of the 
 northern princes afterwards were reputed the descendants 
 of these chieftains, and the two brothers, Hengist and 
 Horsa, who led the Saxons into Britain, are said to have 
 been the great-grandsons of Odin.* 
 
 Inspired with these sentiments, the northerners were inva- 
 riably prodigal of their blood and ready to embark in any 
 enterprise the danger of which might recommend them to 
 the object of their worship. Hence, the hazards and perils 
 of the deep gave a quickening impulse to their superstition j 
 whilst, by repeated trials, their cupidity was rewarded by 
 
 * Bed. Lib. I, Cap. XV. 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NOKTHMEN. 165 
 
 the booty which they procured or the traffic which they 
 carried on with more southern countries. 
 
 But, notwithstanding this became the established charac- 
 ter of the Scandinavians, it is difficult to determine the 
 cause which produced, at the time of which we treat, the 
 sudden bursting forth of these barbarians, in such large 
 numbers ; covering the European seas with lawless pirates 
 for about two centuries, and which occasioned their differ- 
 ent depredations to begin almost everywhere about the 
 same time, and to cease at nearly an equal period. The 
 usual hypothesis upon which this phenomenon is accounted 
 for, is not only defective, but diametrically opposed to mat- 
 ter of fact. It has been asserted that the northern regions 
 are more prolific than those of the south ; and that hence 
 the Scandinavian peninsula soon became so overstocked 
 with inhabitants as to oblige numerous colonies to seek, in 
 other countries, those settlements which the excess of 
 population refused them in their own. This assumption, 
 however, is perfectly gratuitous ; for it is by no means diffi- 
 cult to demonstrate that population has been, at every 
 period, greater in southern than in northern climates. The 
 cities of the north, even down to the present time, are infe- 
 rior in extent, and in the number of their inhabitants, when 
 compared with those of more southern countries j and no 
 physical cause can be assigned why it should in any case 
 be otherwise.^ Besides the extensive tracts of unre- 
 
 * " The Paris Moniteur,''^ says the Toronto Leader, writing in 
 1859, has " published recently some interesting statistics regard- 
 ing the progress of the European populations. One thing ap- 
 pears to be established by these figures ; that climate, more than 
 all other causes, influences the progress of population ; the highest 
 fecundity being in the south and the lowest in the north." 
 
166 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 claimed ground, covered with wood,' which Denmark, 
 Norway, and Sweden still contain, exhibit incontestible 
 proofs that they never possessed a superabundance of inhab- 
 itants. Had the north been more prolific than other regions, 
 and population been more increasingly numerous in cold 
 than in warm climates, it would still be difficult to say why 
 Nature should deviate so far from her accustomed uniform- 
 ity as to produce, at one period, such an amazing conflux of 
 people, and not at every other. On the whole, it must be 
 obvious that the supposition on which the extraordinary 
 migrations of the Northmen in this age have been accounted 
 for, is, in the highest degree, unsatisfactory. 
 
 Some historians, however, have assigned a more proba- 
 ble reason for this unprecedented movement of the Scan- 
 dinavian pirates ; and have supposed that they were influ- 
 enced by mixed motives in their predatory excursions upon 
 the sea. The misdirected zeal of the Emperor Charlemagne, 
 (though he was naturally generous and humane,) had 
 induced him to adopt some severe measures against the 
 pagan Saxons in Germany, whom he had previously sub- 
 jugated. By the most rigorous edicts, as well as by the 
 most unjustifiable military severities, he had obliged them 
 to receive • the sacrament of baptism at the hands of his 
 priests, and to make at least an outward profession of the 
 Christian faith. This monstrous injustice and iniquitous 
 method of making converts, very naturally roused the 
 indignation of the Germans, and the more generous and 
 warlike among them fled northward into Jutland, in order 
 to escape the fury of the emperor.* Received in that 
 
 * Hume's History of England, Chap. II. 
 
PIKST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 167 
 
 country with cordiality by a people of similar manners and 
 sentiments, and perceiving that the religion of their perse- 
 cutors was as inimical to the latter as their swords, they soon 
 began to form a general confederacy against both, and to 
 stimulate the natives of their adopted country to concur 
 with them in their enterprises, for the purpose of defending 
 their religion and liberties as far as they were able.* Ac- 
 cordingly they first invaded the provinces of France, where 
 they were known under the general name of Normans ; and 
 soon afterwards they found their way into Britain, which 
 groaned for a considerable time under their intolerable cruel- 
 ties and oppressidns.f But as the Irish missionaries had 
 taken such an active part in promoting the conversion of 
 their brethren in Germany, they visited Ireland also in a 
 few years afterwards, and wreaked their vengeance upon 
 the inhabitants of a country that had given birth to such 
 obtrusive and indefatigable ecclesiastics. 
 
 A wish for revenge and retaliation may, therefore, have 
 been the motive which at first called forth these formidable 
 hosts from their own frozen and inhospitable regions, but 
 the desire of plunder soon gave an additional impetus to 
 their proceedings. The booty which the first adventurers 
 were enabled to bring back with them to their own country 
 had the natural tendency to induce others to try their for- 
 tune in a similar manner. The situation of their native 
 land, and the abundance of materials for fitting up ships 
 with which it was replete, enabled them to prosecute their 
 designs with vigor and success ; and being able to sweep 
 
 * Mezeray, Hist, de la France, Tom. I, page 165. 
 t The first appearance of the Danes in Britain was in the year 
 787, Ctj^ron. Sax. page 64. 
 
168 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 along the coasts of the neighbouring nations, not in single 
 ships only but in whole fleets, they became the terror of 
 every land that had the misfortune to come within the 
 range of their destructive and unexpected visits. 
 
 Enriched by these predatory excursions^ and Accustomed 
 to brave the dangers of the sea, the Scandinavians contin- 
 ued to pour forth innumerable swarms of fresh adventur- 
 ers ; and such was the effect produced upon the cupidity of 
 their countrymen that even the northern kings themselves 
 were sometimes induced to take a part in these enterprises. 
 In accordance with the general ferocity of their character, 
 their manner of making war was unlike the conduct of a 
 more civilized or generous enemy. They not only pillaged 
 every place which they happened to visit in their progress, 
 but burned or destroyed whatever they were unable to con- 
 vert immediately to their own purposes. Divided into sev- 
 eral independent bodies, according to the ability which they 
 possessed of equipping themselves, it frequently happened 
 that one band of these ferocious adventurers was no sooner 
 gone than another appeared on the coast ; and their enter- 
 prises being too uncertain and desultory to be met by any 
 uniform and systematic resistance, the inhabitants could 
 enjoy no permenent respite from their incursions. The 
 leaders of these barbarians, moreover, having no authority 
 one over another, (being the respective chiefs of so many 
 distinct piratical associations,) it was impracticable to enter 
 into any treaty with them, unless the natives could multi- 
 ply treaties according to the number of chieftains or par- 
 ties that were to be found amongst their invaders. 
 
 Nor was this the worst feature of the melancholy state 
 to which Ireland was reduced at this gloomy period of its 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 169 
 
 history ; for the native princes being almost continually at 
 variance with each other, were frequently found acting in 
 conjunction with the common enemy, merely for the pur- 
 pose of either diminishing the preponderating power of a 
 hated rival, or of taking revenge for some real or imaginary 
 insult. That the miserable defence which the native Irish 
 made against the Danes for so long a period was not owing 
 to any want of courage is evinced by their warlike achieve- 
 ments amongst themselves, as well as by the figure which 
 they made abroad amongst the French, the English, and 
 the Picts. Their own intestine divisions alone produced 
 their weakness, and rendered them an easy prey to a for- 
 eign enemy. 
 
 The year 795 is that in which, according to some writers, 
 the coasts of Ireland began to be infested with the Danes ; 
 and particularly the island of Raghlin,^ off thenor thern 
 coast of the county of Antrim, which they plundered and 
 laid waste. About three years after, or in the second of 
 the reign of Hugh Ornidhe, the west of Munster was 
 invaded by a large body of these freebooters called Loch- 
 Lannics, who for some time ravaged the coast, destroying 
 churches and monasteries, and putting all the clergy they 
 could find immediately to the sword. As soon as intelli- 
 gence of their landing was brought to Airtre, the king of 
 that province, he collected the provincial troops with all 
 possible expedition, engaged them in a pitched battle, de- 
 
 * This island has been known by a variety of names. " It is 
 called Ricnia by Pliny, Ricinia by Ptolemy, Riduna by Antonius, 
 and Recarn or Recrain by the Irish historians ; Raclinda by Bu- 
 chanan, Rachri by Mackenzie, Raghlin by W 
 the modern map makers." Seivard. Topog. 
 
 h 
 
170 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 feated them with considerable slaughter, and forced them 
 to fly to their ships with great confusion and precipitation. 
 Meanwhile the mutual dissensions of the native princes 
 seem to have suflfered no interruption by the danger which 
 now threatened their common country, both in the north 
 and in the south. Instead of summoning the princes of 
 the kingdom to assist him in driving the barbarians from 
 his dominions, the monarch upon account of some dispute 
 which he had had with the people of Leinster, raised an 
 army in the year 799 with which he invaded that prov- 
 ince ; and with an unsparing hand spread desolation and 
 slaughter amongst his own subjects wherever he went. A 
 practice at that time prevailed in Ireland, as well as in other 
 countries, of compelling the bishops and abbots to attend 
 the royal army during the military expeditions of their 
 sovereign ; and amongst others, the monarch was accompa- 
 nied, on this occasion, by Conmac, the Bishop of Armagh, 
 and Fothadius, a learned abbot, whose great knowledge in 
 the canon laws procured for him the name of De Canonihus. 
 The royal army having arrived at the borders of Leinster, 
 Conmac, at the head of his clergy, complained to the king 
 and remonstrated with him upon the impropriety and 
 indecency of seeing the ministers of peace, on all occasions, 
 witnesses of the horrors of war and desolation ; and prayed 
 for himself and his brethren in the ministry, as well as 
 for his successors, that a service so unbecoming their sacred 
 profession might not be imposed upon them for the future. 
 The monarch listened to the remonstrance of the clergy 
 with becoming attention and referred the matter to the 
 judgment of Fothadius, who drew up his opinion in writ- 
 inoj, in which he stated that a service so unclerical should 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 171 
 
 not be imposed upon such as were in holy orders ; and, 
 accordingly, it was decreed that their attendance in future 
 should not be required, but that they should forever be 
 exempted from this unpleasant duty.^ 
 
 Whilst a spirit of patriotism appears to have had no in- 
 fluence over the minds of the princes of Ireland in general, 
 the Scandinavians still continued to infest the country, and 
 to direct their rage more especially against the clergy and 
 religious establishments. In 802, they entered the Isle of 
 Hy, and set fire to the monastery of St. Columba, when 
 many of the monks were consumed in the flames. About 
 four years after this they entered it again, and such was 
 their rage against the inmates of that once illustrious seat 
 of learning, that, it is said, sixty-eight monks were slaugh- 
 tered without mercy, and the number of its members 
 reduced to sixty-four. The following year they succeeded 
 in efiecting a landing on the west coast of Ireland ; and 
 having penetrated as far as Roscommon, they destroyed it, 
 and laid waste the surrounding country.f About the same 
 time, or perhaps something earlier, they made another at- 
 tempt upon the province of Ulster, where they practised 
 the most wanton and unprecedented cruelties upon the 
 inhabitants. They destroyed the famous abbey of Bangor, 
 plundered it of all it contained, and carrying with them 
 the rich shrine of St. Congall, they slaughtered with savage 
 cruelty the abbot and about nine hundred of his monks. 
 The king and people of Ulster having been roused by the 
 enormities of these barbarians, collected all their forces 
 
 * Ware's Writers at Fothadius. Har, Ed, 
 t Ware's Ant., Cap. XXIV. 
 
172 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 together, attacked the enemy with great resolution, and after 
 the loss of twelve hundred of their men, they effected, as 
 usual, an escape to their ships. 
 
 The imperfect accounts that have been transmitted to 
 us of the numerous and sudden incursions of the Danes do 
 not enable us to give a perfect history of all the outrages 
 which they committed at this period ; but it may be ob- 
 served that their proceedings were invariably marked with 
 the same cruelty and barbarity, and were carried on in 
 such a way as to evince more especially their inveterate 
 hostility to the religion and sacred institutions of the 
 country. Nor is it unworthy of notice, that whilst the 
 ravages of the Danes were of themselves an affliction which 
 was almost intolerable, the very elements seemed to con- 
 spire with the enemy to complete the ruin of this distracted 
 and unhappy nation. Whilst the remembrance was fresh 
 in the minds of the people of the slaughter and conflagra- 
 tion which had overspread the land, they were terrified 
 with the most dreadful tempests that had hitherto visited 
 the country, and which were attended with consequences 
 the most awfully fatal and alarming. On the northern 
 side of the Shannon, in the month of March A. D., 816, 
 such a violent storm of thunder and lightning burst forth, 
 that above a thousand persons were destroyed by it in one 
 territory. The sea, at the same time, having broken down 
 its banks with great violence, overflowed a considerale part 
 of the country, and swept everything before its overwhelm- 
 ing inundation. 
 
 But the most formidable attempt that the Danes made 
 upon Ireland, as well as the most fatal in its consequences, 
 was that which was made about the year 815, by Turge-^ 
 
FIKST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 173 
 
 sius,* who arrived at that time with a fleet of one hundred 
 and twenty ships, and a numerous force of his countrymen. 
 
 Although the whole of the proceedings of this barbarian, 
 both as an enemy and a king, are enveloped in considerable 
 obscurity and present the most gloomy aspect of consum- 
 mate tyranny and oppression, we have sufficient informa- 
 tion to convince us that he possessed much of the craft of a 
 wily politician, and that his plans were laid with such pre- 
 caution as to insure the successful issue of his perilous en- 
 terprise. Apprised of the numerous weak points of Irish 
 policy, but especially of the prevalent divisions of the na- 
 tive chieftains, he employed all his ingenuity and address 
 to gain some of them over to his cause, and to induce them 
 to co-operate with him in his plans for forming a Danish 
 settlement in the country. It is not without reason sup- 
 posed, that it was by the counsel and assistance of some of 
 these traitors he was enabled to possess himself of many 
 strong positions, in which he was suffered to form settle- 
 ments with his followers, and to fortify them in such a 
 manner as to render their security as permanent as possi- 
 ble. One thing is certain that he ultimately subdued the 
 Irish, castellated and garrisoned their country, and with a 
 triumphant army, for many years, held the sovereign sway in 
 that kingdom. 
 
 Turgesius is said by some to have been one of the sons 
 of Harold Harfager, the king of Norway, on whom that 
 prince conferred the regal title and assigned him a part of 
 
 * There is a great diflFerence of opinion respecting the precise 
 time of the arrival of this northern chieftain. Ware and O'Fla- 
 herty, however, are agreed that it was in 815. Ware Ant, Chap, 
 XXIV, 0' Flaherty's Ogyg., Part III, Chap. XCIIL 
 
174 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 his dominions. But it is probable they have no other 
 foundation for such a conjecture than merely the name of 
 this chieftain. The son of Harold is introduced in the 
 Icelandic Chronicles, under the name of Thorgils ; but as 
 the Irish did not use H as a letter, except as a mere aspi- 
 rate,* and were accustomed to drop one where two conso- 
 nats came together, they made from Thorgils, Torgis, which 
 was easily Latinized into Tiirgeslus.-\ These Chronicles, 
 however, made Harold divide his dominions among his sons 
 A. D. 903, which would by no means synchronise with the 
 time of the arrival of Turgesius in Ireland. 
 
 No sooner had this chieftain landed in Ireland and been 
 joined by his countrymen, than he set himself to bear down 
 every opposition, and' to subjugate the whole island to his 
 dominion. In order to strike the natives with terror, and 
 to oblige them to divide their strength as much as possible, 
 he separated his army into different bodies, and disposed 
 of them in such a manner as seemed most likely to produce 
 the desired effect. He also adopted a similar line of policy 
 along the coast, by dividing his fleet into three different 
 squadrons, and ordering all his forces, both by sea and 
 land, to spare neither age nor sex. but to ravage the country 
 with fire and sword wherever they came : a mandate which 
 was punctually obeyed even beyond the letter, by the rapa- 
 cious barbarians that wer£ under his command. 
 
 Whilst these cruelties were being carried on by the com- 
 mon enemy, the spirit of disunion was still producing its mel- 
 ancholy effects amongst the natives. This unhappy circum- 
 
 * O'Brien's Irish Diet. Letter C. Lhuyd's Arch. p. 300, 
 t See Led. Ant. p. 28. 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTmiEN. 175 
 
 stance was perhaps as much the result of the aristocratical 
 form of government which prevailed in the country, as of 
 the irascible disposition of its princes and chiefs. Even at 
 this very time, when almost half the island was possessed 
 by the enemy, the monarch of Ireland, instead of joining 
 with the provincialists in attacking the Danes, marched all 
 his forces against some of his own people, and after a 
 troublesome reign of about twenty-two years, was slain in 
 the battle of Defearta by the Conacians. 
 
 During the administration of Connor, his successor, 
 which commenced about A. D. 819, the country was per- 
 petually infested by the cruel and persevering ravages of 
 the foreigners. Nor was the worthless prince who had now 
 succeeded to the monarchy likely to give any check to their 
 constant depredations and rapacity. Instead of trying to 
 reconcile the petty feuds of his subjects, he appears rather 
 to have sanctioned them by his own example, as in the face 
 of his bleeding country, he fought a pitched battle with 
 some of the northern chiefs, on the trifling pretext of hav- 
 ing received offence, and on no occasion during his reign, 
 which lasted fourteen years, does he appear to have taken 
 any energetic measures to resist the common foe. It is 
 therefore by no means surprising, from the intolerable rage 
 of faction which prevailed amongst the Irish themselves, 
 that wherever the/ invaders came they were received with 
 joy by the weakest party : for none of the Irish factions of 
 this time made any scruple to join with the common enemy 
 against their own countrymen, provided they had thereby 
 a prospect of either plunder or revenge. 
 
 In the meantime the monks of St. Columba in the Isle 
 of Hy, notwithstanding their secluded position, shared 
 
1T6 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 frequently in the sufferings to which their brethren were 
 exposed in the mother country. In one of those predatory 
 invasions made by their pagan enemies, about A. B. 824, 
 St. Blaithmac is said to have been mutdered by a plunder- 
 ing party that arrived in that island. He was descended 
 of a royal family in Ireland, most probably some branch of 
 the southern Hy-Nials. Having, however, retired from 
 the world and embraced the monastic profession, he subse- 
 quently went over to Hy to visit his countrymen in that 
 establishment ; but was not long in the island when a party 
 of Danes approached it. Considering it to be inconsistent 
 with his profession to shrink from danger, Blaithmac 
 resolved, whatever might be the issue, not to think of flight, 
 but to abide in the monastery. Others were induced to 
 follow his example, but such as were unwilling to encounter 
 the impending danger he advised to make their escape 
 immediately. Accompanied by his intrepid companions, 
 he repaired to the church in order to celebrate divine ser- 
 vice, and while thus engaged, the Danes rushed into the 
 aisle, and having cut down all that came in their way, came 
 up to him, and asked for the precious metal belonging to 
 the monastery. The sacred utensils, however, of any value 
 had been concealed under ground, and Blaithmac was 
 really ignorant of the spot in which they had been deposited. 
 But believing that it would be a dereliction of duty to 
 plead even this ignorance for the purpose of saving his own 
 life, he replied that he did not know where they were, but 
 if he did, he would not make the discovery they required. 
 The barbarians finding that they were unable to overcome 
 his obstinacy, immediately put him to death,* and thus 
 
 ♦ Jan. 19, 824. Colgan. Act. Sanct. at Jan. 19. 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 177 
 
 conferred upon him the crown of martyrdom, which some 
 think he was very anxious to obtain. 
 
 It would be needless to enter into a distinct detail of all 
 the atrocities committed by the Scandinavian immigrants in 
 Ireland, under the government of such a tyrant as Turge- 
 sius, who seems to have been completely dead to every good 
 feeling of the human heart. Esteeming it the soldier's 
 right to be indulged in the most licentious excesses, he set 
 no limits to the brutal conduct of his followers; and in their 
 progress, wherever they went, the monuments of munificent 
 piety, the seats of learning, and the residences of princes, 
 were either reduced to ashes or levelled with the ground.* 
 
 Meanwhile in the midst of these troubles, Connor, the 
 monarch, after an inglorious reign of fourteen years, de- 
 parted this life ; and the crown devolved, in 833, upon Niall, 
 surnamed Calne, the son of Hugh Ornidhe, during whose 
 reign the same calamities continued to afflict the unhappy 
 inhabitants of Ireland. The northern marauders had been 
 suflFered to overrun a great part of Leinster and Connaught J 
 whilst no united effort was made by the natives to oppose 
 them. The Lagenians were the first that seemed to have 
 roused themselves from this lethargy ; and headed by their 
 gallant prince, Lorcan, they collected a considerable force, 
 and attacked them at Druim-Conla. The contest was very 
 bloody, and for a long time doubtful ; but at length the pro- 
 vincialists were obliged to give way before a superior force ; 
 and for the first time were the Irish defeated in the field 
 by these aliens, with the loss of the bravest and most enter- 
 prising of their troops. 
 
 * Ware ut supra. 
 
178 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Had the Lagenians been supported by the rest of their 
 countrymen upon this occasion, the result of this desperate 
 struggle might have been widely different ; but the time of 
 their deliverance was not yet at hand : and the Danes pur- 
 sued their victory with increased violence and rapacity. 
 In the south, numerous hordes of these barbarians landed 
 and spread terror and desolation throughout all the southern 
 districts. The city of Lismore was completely destroyed, 
 and its ancient seat of learning, so famous throughout all 
 Europe, with its valuable library, was left in ruins by the 
 savage fury of the relentless enemy. The schools at Clon- 
 ard and Cashel shared the same fate ; whilst such of the 
 clergy as had not concealed themselves were put to the 
 sword without any feeling of mercy. Unlearned and bar- 
 barous themselves, the Danes had no respect for learning in 
 other men ; and they swept all before them indiscriminately 
 with a cruel and unrelenting fury. 
 
 It is said that whilst his country was beset with dangers 
 on every hand, and after a course of the most violent and 
 cruel proceedings, Feidhlim, the dynast of Munster, retired 
 from his throne and embraced a monastic life. This prince, 
 for the gratification of his own ambition and the extension 
 of his power, had taken advantage of the miseries of his 
 country, and had followed with unrelenting ferocity the 
 footsteps of the northern spoilers. Untrammelled by a spirit 
 of patriotism, and completely free from the restraints of 
 religion, he had learned to imitate the ruthless sacrilege 
 of the Danish invaders ; and allured by the wealth of the 
 monastic establishments, he had visited those sacred retreats, 
 and, besides laying waste their lands, either slaughtered the 
 inoffensive inmates or . carried them away captive and 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 179 
 
 reduced them to the condition of slaves.* Encouraged by 
 his success and confiding in his military talents, he next 
 revived a dispute between the provinces of Connaught 
 and Munster, about the possession of a territory which 
 is now comprehended in the county of Clare; and hav- 
 ing been opposed by the monarch, he not only defeated 
 the royal forces, but entered Meath with an army and 
 carried off Niall's daughter with her female attendants. 
 But his guilty career soon came to a- termina- 
 tion. Smitten by his own conscience, and apprehen- 
 sive that he might be suddenly hurried to his final 
 account, he relinquished his throne, was transformed into 
 an anchoret, and died, apparently, a penitent after all his 
 excesses, t 
 
 On Feidhlim's abdication, Olchubhar MacKinede, the 
 abbot and bishop of Emly, contrived to get himself raised 
 to the provincial throne, without laying aside his episcopal 
 character ; and was the first Irish prince in whom the sceptre 
 and crosier were united. J This belligerent divine, being 
 concerned for the fate of his unhappy country, about the 
 year 848, attacked the Danes in the country of the Deasies, 
 with a degree of heroism worthy of the sacred cause in which 
 he was^ engaged. In this engagement the foreigners were 
 put to a shameful flight, after a most frightful carnage, in 
 which they lost two of their chiefs, Tomar and Eric, besides 
 
 * See Lives of Illust. and Dist. Irishmen, p. ITS. 
 
 t Annals of Innisfallen, at A.D. 847. 
 
 t It has been stated by some writers that Feidhlim was a 
 bishop as well as a king, but this is a mistake as he never received 
 episcopal consecration, but spent the latter part of his life in 
 religious seclusion. 
 
180 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 an incredible number of the flower of their army. The 
 Munster troops also, it is said, suffered considerably ; and 
 amongst others, many of the prime nobility of the province 
 fell a sacrifice that day to the fury of the invaders. 
 
 In order to secure themselves against any attempt of the 
 natives, the Danes had erected fortifications and castles in 
 different parts of the country, so that if any of those whom 
 they had driven from their habitations ventured to return, 
 they must do so on terms of submission to them. 
 
 The Irish perceiving these preparations, and knowing 
 that the Danes were meditating nothing less than a complete 
 conquest of their country, sometimes recovered their ancient 
 spirit and roused themselves from their lethargy ; and wher- 
 ever they engaged the foreigners they were generally vic- 
 torious. But when once revenge with its lighted torch had 
 kindled the flame of resentment in their breasts, nothing 
 could induce them to lay aside their dissensions, and 
 unite with those who happened to belong to a rival faction 
 against the common enemies of their country. Accustomed 
 to consider a coward as the most despicable of charac- 
 ters, and enthusiastic in their opinion of martial valour, as 
 in their views of family and personal honour, they could 
 scarcely ever be reconciled to each other, after a quarrel had 
 taken place between them. For dreading the charge of a 
 want of courage, should they be the first to make any over- 
 ture of peace to an opposing antagonist, neither party could 
 be persuaded to come upon any terms of accommodation ; 
 and therefore the quarrel continued from one generation to 
 another, and very seldom ended but with the entire extinc- 
 tion of one of the families. Had their government been 
 purely hereditary, many of those occasions of strife and 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 181 
 
 animosity would have been avoided ; but as the monarchy 
 itself, as well as the provincial dynasties, was elective, in a 
 country in which so many families had pretensions that 
 were nearly equal, a spirit of faction was not only engen- 
 dered and maintained, but from the disposition of the peo- 
 ple it was such a spirit as could not be easily appeased. 
 
 Surrounded with all those difficulties which the state of 
 Ireland at that time presented, it was not an easy thing for 
 the monarch to determine what line of conduct he ought to 
 pursue. Having engaged the invaders in two different 
 places, and defeated them with considerable slaughter, Niall 
 endeavoured to unite the jarring interests of the kingdom 
 in one common effort to drive them entirely out of the island. 
 For this purpose, it is said, he visited Leinster in the year 
 846 ; but coming to the banks of the river Calluin,* which 
 he intended to ford, and finding it swollen to a great height 
 with some heavy rains that had fallen, he directed one of 
 his attendants to try the depth of it, before he would ven- 
 ture in himself with the whole of his retinue. The stream, 
 however, was too rapid, the man was washed off his horse, 
 and a degree of timidity having discovered itself in his 
 attendants, the monarch himself pushed his horse boldly to 
 the side of the river where the man was struggling in the 
 stream ; but as the ground had been undermined by the 
 washing of the water, it immediately gave way, and he was 
 unfortunately drowned at a time when his life was of so 
 much moment to his distracted country. f 
 
 The premature death of Niall Calne, as well as the dis« 
 
 * It is said by the Four Masters that it was from the name of 
 this river the surname of the monarch was derived, 
 t Vide O'Flaher., Ogyg, Part III, c. 93, 
 
182 HISTORY OF IRELAND* 
 
 ordered^state of the country, rendered it impossible that 
 his successor should be elected with the usual solemnity ; 
 but it is generally agreed that Malachy, the king of Meath, 
 and the nephew of the late monarch Connor, was nomina- 
 ted to the vacant throne. This nomination, however, was 
 confined to his own countrymen, for Turgesius himself 
 assumed the title of monarch, and was probably proclaimed 
 as such by his Danish and Norwegian followers. In the 
 various encounters which followed, for they can scarcely be 
 called battles, the Danes, though frequently defeated, had 
 resources which the natives at that period did not possess. 
 Besides the continual influx of their countrymen from their 
 own frozen and barren soil, they were able, by their supe- 
 riority both in Britain and France, to recruit upon emergen- 
 cies their forces more expeditiously from thence, than to 
 wait for new succours from the shores of the Baltic. The 
 forces of Turgesius were therefore so numerous and well 
 appointed, that they were able to take the lead of the Irish, 
 and to carry on the war with considerable advantage. The 
 vanqusihed natives, in addition to the loss of their property, 
 were compelled to relinquish their liberty and submit to be 
 governed by the will of their conquerors. Under a govern- 
 ment established in this manner by a pagan tyrant, the reli- 
 gion and liberties of the nation were speedily overturned, and 
 she herself divested of her chiefest ornaments, sat like a 
 forlorn, disconsolate widow in her weeds. The native Irish 
 were forced into captivity, and such as remained were 
 obliged to conceal themselves in the woods and deserts in 
 order to escape from the grinding oppression of their foreign 
 masters. 
 
 The haughty tyrant, who was now acknowledged mon- 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. l8B 
 
 arch by his own followers, having brought the whole island 
 into subjection, endeavoured, with the tenacious grasp of a 
 falcon, to keep possession of that authority which he had 
 acquired, and ibr the purpose of giving stability to his 
 power he introduced a new order of things amongst the 
 inhabitants of the oppressed and unhappy country. Every 
 district in the island, in which an Irish Taoiseach or lord, 
 resided, was obliged to entertain a Danish chief under the 
 title of king,^ to whom the native chieftain was compelled 
 to submit, and from whom he was to receive orders upon 
 every subject connected with the government of the people. 
 Into every town or parish, besides its old magistrates, was 
 placed a military captain ; every village had a sergeant, and 
 in every farm-house a private soldier was lodged. The sea 
 coasts of the country were ravaged wtih impunity, by sending 
 different parties round the island in boats, and it is im- 
 possible to depict the various forms of misery and oppres- 
 sion which the helpless inhabitants were obliged to undergo. 
 Fire and sword, rape and plunder, violence and captivity, 
 marked in every place the usurpation of Turgesius ; whilst 
 the apparent impossibilty of emancipating themselves from 
 this galling yoke, contributed most extensively to break the 
 spirit of the Irish and to sacrifice their hopes upon the altar 
 of despair. 
 
 As pillaging adventurers, the Danes had, from the begin- 
 ning, sufficiently proved their barbarity; but at length their 
 oppressions and exactions began to assume a sterner and 
 more peremptory aspect from the license of authority. In 
 order to collect the revenues with which the monasteries 
 
 * Warn. Vol. IT, p. 101, 
 
184 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 had been endowed, a Danish agent had now his residence 
 in every one of them that had not been reduced to ashes, 
 and even near the ruins of such as had been destroyed. 
 The bishops and clergy were obliged to conceal themselves, 
 and all orders in the state were entirely laid aside. The 
 different literary establishments with which the island 
 abounded were filled with soldiers ; churches and monas- 
 teries with heathen priests ; and a country, which was for- 
 merly so celebrated in other lands for the learning and zeal 
 of its ecclesiastics, was rendered a theatre of the most bar- 
 barous and revolting cruelties which the minds of savage 
 oppressors were able to invent. 
 
 The nation which had been shorn of her strength and 
 deprived of her right by her former civil broils and conten- 
 tions, was now unable to make any resistance to these 
 accumulated evils ; and might be compared to the solitary 
 oak that throws out its shattered and unprotected branches 
 against the full sweep of the tempest. All the books that 
 could be discovered by the barbarians were either burned 
 or torn to pieces ; religion and letters were interdicted ; and 
 the inhabitants were not permitted to teach their children 
 to read, or any other useful or ornamental accomplishment. 
 Even the decencies of society and of domestic life were 
 trampled under foot ; and every bridegroom was obliged to 
 purchase the virginity of his bride from the Danish captain 
 of the district, by a certain tax imposed upon him on the 
 day of his marriage. No man, whatever his rank in society 
 might be, could call anything his own of all his possessions. 
 His cattle, his corn, and all his provisions were at the dis- 
 posal of a rapacious soldiery. As one of the Danish mili- 
 tary was quartered in every house and cottage throughout 
 
FIEST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 185 
 
 the kingdom, he was not only a spy upon every action, 
 word, and look of the inmates, but the absolute master of 
 the house and of every person in it. The rightful owner was 
 not permitted to sit down to his meals in his own habita- 
 tion, nor partake of the fruit of his own industry, till his 
 military guest was satisfied ; and whatever might be the 
 wish of the latter, his entertainer dared not refuse him, as 
 such a refusal would expose him to consequences that might 
 be fatal to himself and to his family. The natives were 
 not allowed to kill even a chicken, or make use of a little 
 milk, until liberty from the resident soldier was first 
 obtained; and neither the sufferings of the diseased, the 
 supplications of the needy, nor the cries of infancy itself, 
 could soften the hard and obdurate heart of this inhuman 
 and inexorable tyrant.* 
 
 Before the spirit of the Irish was completely subdued, 
 several of them had refused to comply with the demands of 
 these oppressors; but the soldiers of the neighbouring 
 houses, having joined together, dragged the recusants by 
 violence to the nearest guard, and there, under the most 
 cruel circumstances, they were imprisoned, until they had 
 made satisfaction to their guest for their disobedience, and 
 promised to be more obsequious for the future. None of 
 the gentry or nobility was permitted to wear any clothes, 
 but such as the Danes had first worn out and laid aside ; 
 and the sons of the Irish chiefs were forbidden the use of 
 arms, lest at any time they might be prompted to make 
 •ome effort for the emancipation of their afflicted country- 
 men. The very ladies themselves became the subject of 
 
 * See Warner, Vol. II., pp. 102, 103, &c. 
 M 
 
186 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 Danish legislation, and were not permitted to work with the 
 needle, or to receive an education suitable for their station 
 in society. The master of every house in the land was 
 obliged to pay an annual tribute to certain receivers 
 appointed by Turgesius, and this was exacted with so much 
 rigour and cruelty, that such as were remiss in the payment, 
 whether through inability or otherwise, were to forfeit their 
 noses,* or become slaves to their ferocious oppressors. 
 
 This mere outline of the intolerable state of bondage in 
 which the native Irish were held at that period, is in perfect 
 accordance with the records of the times, the colouring 
 and incidents which it presents being by no means height- 
 ened in the sketch we have given. Like the pestilence 
 under whose malignant influence joy is blasted and nature 
 sickens, the Scandinavian power continued for many years 
 to harass and oppress the afflicted inhabitants of this unhappy 
 island. But the days of the northern tyrant were already 
 numbered ; and his oppressive cruelty, by a retributive 
 providence was subsequently visited upon his own head. 
 
 Malachy had for a considerable time been meditating the 
 deliverance of his country, but by what means it was to be 
 effected he was unable to determine. The Danish police, as 
 well as the constant dissensions among his own people, 
 raised insurmountable obstacles in his way. It appears, 
 however, that he kept upon some terms of intimacy with 
 the tyrant, lest he should be suspected and his designs be 
 altogether defeated. It is said,f that, on one occasion, he 
 proposed a question to Turgesius, most probably to deter- 
 
 * Hence this tax was called Airgid-Srone^ or " nose-money.' 
 OHal., Hist., B. X., Chap. III. 
 
 t Cambrens. Topog. Hib. Dist. iii. C. 42, 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 187 
 
 mine the line of conduct which he ought to pursue. " What," 
 said he, " shall we do to clear the country effectually of a 
 parcel of foreign birds, lately come among us, and that are 
 of a most pestiferous nature ? " Ignorant of the real tend- 
 ency of the question proposed, and never imagining that 
 the Irish monarch designed to apply it to himself and his 
 followers, the Danish chieftian replied, " If they build nests 
 you can never hope to root them out without destroying their 
 nests everywhere." The hint was not lost upon Malachy, 
 for he saw at once that in order to root out the Scandina- 
 vian power from his dominions, he must destroy the castles 
 and strongholds which his enemies had erected in the land. 
 
 A. D. 859. Meanwhile Turgesius, in the course of his 
 predatory excursions, entered Armagh, and seized upon 
 Forannan, the Bishop of that see, together with the clergy 
 of the city and the students of the college, and had them 
 conveyed to the Danish fleet in Limerick : but by some con- 
 trivance not authentically related, he was in the same year 
 made a prisoner, by Malachy, and by his orders was drowned 
 in Loch Annin contiguous to the tyrant's own residence. 
 
 There is a romantic story told of this transaction,* upon 
 the authority of Cambrensis, which like much of what that 
 writer has stated respecting Ireland, is most probably but 
 a mere fabrication. It is said, that accustomed to the most 
 passive obedience, and wantonly indulging every lawless 
 passion, Turgesius had conceived a most dishonourable pas- 
 
 * Dr. Warner has given a detailed account of this event in his 
 history, vol. ii. pp. 104-107; but neither the Four Masters, the 
 Annals of Ulster, or of Innisfallen have anything about the 
 fifteen beardless young men by whom, it is stated, Turgesius was 
 made prisoner. 
 
188 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 sion for Melcha, the Irish monarch's daughter, and that he 
 had found means to make his desires known to her ; hut his 
 proposals were rejected with disdain. He next addressed 
 himself to her father, and demanded her as his mistress at 
 the hand of that monarch ; but Malachy, who would 
 have resented this offensive and indecent proposal with a 
 becoming mixture of indignation and abhorrence, had 
 circumstances permitted, suppressed his resentment and 
 counterfeited compliance for the time; in order that he 
 might with the greater certainty bring ruin and destruc- 
 tion upon his enemies. 
 
 Malachy, in whose breast neither patriotism nor ambition 
 was a predominant passion, had now all the feelings of a 
 father lacerated ; and those passions, which neither the love 
 of his country nor of glory could move, burst forth and issued 
 in deep and deadly projects of revenge. He was not 
 deficient in abilities, genius, or courage; and in order to carry 
 his project into effect, he requested of Turgesius two days 
 to • prepare his daughter for entering the mansion of that 
 pagan usurper. In return for this act of condescension, he 
 engaged that she should be accompanied by fifteen of the 
 finest virgins in Meath, whom he might dispose of among 
 his principal favourites. This bemg conceded, Malachy 
 retired to his palace, to consider more at leisure the con- 
 duct he should pursue. The shortness of the time, as well 
 as the number of Danish enemies who had established such 
 a perfect system of espionage in his kingdom, could not 
 deter him from the undertaking which he now proposed to 
 himself. With the utmost secrecy, he therefore procured 
 fifteen beardless young men, who were enthusiastically 
 attached to the cause of their oppressed country : and these, 
 disguised in female attire, having each of them a dirk con^ 
 
FIRST INVASION OF THE NORTHMEN. 189 
 
 cealed under his garment, were to accompany the princess 
 to the residence of the Danish tyrant. He, at the same 
 time, ventured to call together a few of his most faithful 
 adherents, and communicated to them his intentions. Des- 
 patches were also secretly sent from prince to prince and 
 from one chieftain to another, directing them everywhere 
 to fall upon the Danes simultaneously, on the day appoint- 
 ed ; that by such means they might be unable to afford 
 assistance to each other. 
 
 The fatal evening arrived, and the princess with her 
 attendants proceeded to the castle of the Dane ; whilst the 
 Irish monarch prepared with his forces to follow. The 
 young men had previously received instructions, that at 
 the moment they saw the Dane advancing towards the 
 princess, they should seize and bind him, but by no means 
 take^ his life. A sign was agreed upon, and, when given, 
 the gates were to be burst open, and Malachy and his party 
 were to rush in, and to put the garrison to the sword. All 
 this plan was therefore carried into effect ; and the foreign 
 tyrant was led in fetters from his mansion amidst the exul- 
 tations of the Irish party, who had so successfully executed 
 the orders of their legitimate sovereign. 
 
 Nor were the princes and chieftains in other parts of the 
 kingdom remiss in obeying the orders which they had re- 
 ceived. The Danes everywhere fell a prey to the enraged 
 Irish ; and in a short time, it is said, an armed Dane was 
 not to be seen in the land. Their castles were demolished, 
 their strongholds taken possession of, and in the presence 
 of the remnant of his people who had by some means 
 escaped the general slaughter, as well as in the presence of 
 the Irish, Turgesius was thrown into Loch-Annin, bound 
 hand and foot, according to the monarch's directions. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Second Danish War. 
 
 The deatli of Turgesius was an event wliicli produced 
 an extensive' effect upon Irish affairs. A convocation of 
 the states was assembled and the monarchical crown was 
 solemnly as well as gratefully secured to Malachy ; and, 
 for a time, peace and liberty were restored to the inhabitants 
 of a long oppressed and almost ruined country. In a 
 short time the kingdom was cleared of these hostile bands, 
 who had hitherto infested it, and had been chiefly sus- 
 tained by the energy and political talents of their leader. 
 Such of the surviving foreigners as were unable to effect 
 their escape to their ships were obliged to seek for quarters 
 at the hands of natives. The clergy, who had concealed 
 themselves during the usurpation of the tyrant, came forth 
 from their hiding-places, and several of those that had 
 fled to the continent returned to their native country. The 
 churches and religious houses which had been demolished 
 were rebuilt ; the seats of learning were restored ; and such 
 works as had escaped the fury of the oppressors were care- 
 fully collected by the vigilant industry of the remaining 
 ecclesiastics.* 
 
 But whilst in this convention all the ancient rights of both 
 the princes and the people, as well as all the functions of 
 the goverment, were restored, there were no efficient meas- 
 ures adopted for securing the public safety from foreign 
 
 * O'Hal. Book X, Cap. IV. 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 191 
 
 invasion ; and the consequence of this omission they were 
 soon obliged to lament. 
 
 A temporary peace, however, having been happily restored 
 to the country, the people everywhere rejoiced in their 
 newly-recovered privileges. Had they only learned by 
 their recent calamities the fatal effect of their own dissen- 
 sions, the evils of their late subjugation would have been 
 attended with the most salutary consequences. But, un- 
 happily, the Irish were not a people that received instruc- 
 tion even from their own experience; and, aware of this 
 unfortunate propensity, the Danes, notwithstanding they 
 had been so signally vanquished, returned in the year 849 
 with a fleet of one hundred and forty ships, and renewed 
 the contest.^ This invasion is what is called by some 
 Irish writers "the Second Danish War;" but, in fact it 
 was like the former made up of a variety of petty wars 
 and rencounters, which lasted for the space of nearly a 
 century and a half. 
 
 The native princes, the scanty circumference of whose 
 actions was always bounded by their own personal or local 
 interests, had soon lost that sense of a common danger with 
 which the recent circumstances of their country might 
 have fully impressed them. Accustomed to view nothing 
 beyond the narrow circle of their own immediate connex- 
 ions, and like the niggardly wretch whose aims are all turned 
 inward and meanly terminate upon himself, they were ready 
 at all times, on the slightest call of private passion, to 
 desert the public cause, and to league with an enemy whose 
 object was the general ruin of the natiop ; provided such 
 
 » Annals of Ulster, A. D. 848. Ware, Ant,, Cap. XXIV. 
 
192 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 a coalition only promised to gratify their own immediate 
 ambition and revenge. 
 
 Nor was this disposition confined to the inferior toparchs, 
 whose petty dissensions had embroiled their respective ter- 
 ritories in interminable strife and animosity ; but even the 
 monarch himself, instead of endeavouring to add a more 
 vigorous tone to the activity of the nation, and thereby to 
 repair the decays of its enfeebled constitution, was sometimes 
 obliged, from the pressure of untoward circumstances, to avail 
 himself of the ready arms of the common enemy, and by 
 this means to retain his station against the encroachments of 
 some of his own tributaries. This state of affairs could not 
 fail to give a decided advantage to the foreigners, who, 
 during the protracted struggle which ensued, employed every 
 means in their power to increase amongst the natives the 
 fiery tumults of feverish excitement, and to ally themselves 
 with the stronger party in every broil, that they might 
 accomplish their own purpose through the instrumentality 
 of their enemies. 
 
 For a short time after the restoration of their government 
 no opportunity occurred to induce the native princes to take 
 the field against each other. But at length, even in the 
 sight of a returning enemy, they began to indulge this fatal 
 propensity ; and it was probably owing to this cause, that 
 the monarch was obliged to make peace with the invaders 
 the year after their arrival, and to employ them in an expe- 
 dition against some of his enemies. 
 
 During the course of that tedious and indecisive warfare 
 which was kept up so long between the natives and the 
 foreign settlers, and in which some slight alterations took 
 place in the mutual feelings and relative position of the 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 193 
 
 parties, the character of the latter was changed from that 
 of a horde of pirates and robbers into the more respectable 
 form of a number of trading and commercial colonists. 
 By various means, they had sufficient address to obtain 
 possession of the principal maritime stations in the island, 
 and to secure those advantages of which their more simple 
 neighbours, the Irish, seem to have been completely igno- 
 rant. But the permanence of their security was soon dis- 
 turbed, and rendered for a time exceedingly precarious, by 
 the cupidity and love of plunder which existed amongst 
 some of their own countrymen in the north. 
 
 The shores of the Baltic, as we have already seen, were 
 most prolific in adventurers, whose predilection for rapine, 
 both by sea and land, gave an effective impulse to all their 
 movements ; but they were of distinct races and tribes, and, 
 though always ready to unite with each other for the sake 
 of mutual advantage, they had their own interests and pur- 
 suits respectively, which they were unwilling concede to a 
 rival clan even of their own countrymen. 
 
 The Norwegian tribes, hitherto the principal people that 
 resorted to the Irish coasts, were called by the natives 
 i^m-gals, or "White Foreigners, whilst another description of 
 Northmen, little known in Ireland till about the middle of 
 the ninth century, were denominated jD«5/i-gals, or Black 
 Foreigners. In the year 851, Dublin, which was possessed 
 by the former, was attacked by a considerable body of 
 the latter, who arrived on the Irish coast, and plundered 
 this settlement of their countrymen with the greatest 
 rapacity. The following year a party of these marauders 
 entered Armagh upon Easter Sunday, and the depredations 
 which theycommitted on that occasion are conjectured to 
 
194 HISTORY Of IRELAND. 
 
 have caused the death of Diermod, the bishop of the see, 
 which is recorded as having taken place that year. But the 
 Fin-gals having collected their forces, and received rein- 
 forcements from their native country, attacked the intruders 
 with such spirit, that they regained the city of Dublin ; and, 
 in a battle which lasted for three days and three nights, 
 the Dubhs were completely defeated and slaughtered 
 without mercy.* 
 
 Notwithstanding these predatory visits to Ireland were 
 attended with much danger, the foreigners do not seem to 
 have been intimidated by the losses which their country- 
 men so frequently sustained. Scandinavia had an inex- 
 haustible store of materials for shipping; and its hardy 
 sons were naturally possessed of an invincible spirit of 
 enterprise. About the year 853,t therefore, a Norwegian 
 prince named Amlave, or AuliflFe, accompanied by his two 
 brothers, Sitric and Ivar, arrived in Ireland, and was 
 hailed as their chief by all his countrymen, by which means 
 he was enabled to exact contributions from the native inhab- 
 itants. Such, however, was not the ostensible purpose for 
 which he directed his course at first to the shores of this 
 country. If Cambrensis can be credited, the three brothers 
 fitted out a considerable fleet loaded with merchandise 
 in which a great quantity of arms were concealed ; and, 
 in order to avoid exciting the suspicion of the Irish, they 
 
 ♦Ware, Ant, Cap. XXIV. 
 
 t " Auliffe, the King of Norway's son, came this year into 
 Ireland, accompanied in that expedition by his two brothers 
 Sitric and Jobhar. The Danes and Norwegians submitted to him, 
 and he was also paid tribute by the Irish." — O^Reilly^s Transla- 
 tion of the Annals of Jnnisf alien. 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 195 
 
 divided themselves into three squadrons. One sailed up 
 the Shannon to Limerick, commanded by Ivar, who hav- 
 ing waited on the King of North Munster, and presented 
 him with some rare curiosities, obtained permission from 
 him to settle in that city, for commercial purposes. Under a 
 similar pretence, Amlave was allowed to take up his resi- 
 dence in Dublin, and Sitric in Waterford. 
 
 Having thus obtained a footing in Ireland, the northern 
 chieftains paid their court with the utmost assiduity to 
 those princes in whose territories they had severally settled. 
 They soothed their passions, entered into their interests, 
 and promised them their aid whenever it was required. 
 Allured by these artifices, and far from suspecting their 
 intentions, the Irish princes permitted them to purchase 
 land, and to erect castles and strongholds for their own 
 security. But instead of proving the friends and allies of 
 their respective patrons, as they had promised at first, they 
 soon began to entertain hopes of acquiring the same autho- 
 rity over the Irish as their predecessors had enjoyed. Such 
 was the insolence with which they subsequently acted to- 
 wards the native inhabitants, that in the year 856, Malachy 
 was obliged to raise a powerful army and to give them bat- 
 tle. Great numbers were slain on both sides, but the 
 Danes were completely vanquished, and the greater part 
 of those that were quartered at Dublin were put to the 
 sword. The monarch, however, did not long enjoy the 
 fruits of his victory, as, after a reign of trouble and vexa- 
 tion, he died in the year 863 ; and by the assistance of 
 Amlave and his followers, Hugh Finley, son of the monarch 
 Niall who had been drowned in the river Calluin nearly 
 seventeen years before, contrived to succeed to the vacant 
 throne. 
 
196 , HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 But notwithstanding Hugh was indebted to Amlave for 
 his elevation to the monarchy, it does not appear that 
 he considered himself bound thereby to the foreigners by 
 any ties of amity or friendship : for, in three years after 
 his accession, we find him joining Kieran, the son of 
 Konan, and the Kinel-Eogain, or people of Tyrone, in a 
 battle against them, near Lough Foyle in the county of 
 Donegal, in which, victory crowned the efforts of the Irish, 
 and they came off triumphant with the heads of two hun- 
 dred and forty of the northern chiefs.* 
 
 Nothing intimidated by the disastrous issue of this 
 engagement, the foreigners, in three years after, under the 
 command of Amlave, entered Armagh, and, after plunder- 
 ing the churches and sacred places of all that was in them, 
 burned the town and killed or captured about one thousand 
 persons.f 
 
 But amidst these calamities, which were continually 
 coming upon their common country, the Irish princes found 
 frequent opportunities of waging war upon each other, and 
 of evincing a spirit of revenge as diabolical as that which 
 was exhibited by their ferocious invaders. Taking advan- 
 tage of the absence of Amlave and Ivar in North Briton, in 
 the year 870, the monarch, by no means softened by the 
 misfortunes of his people, laid waste the Lagenian territo- 
 ries from Dublin to Gowran ; and, as the Danes knew well 
 how to take advantage of those times in which the people 
 were engaged in preying upon each other, the consequences 
 might have been fatal to himself, had not Amlave died the 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A. 866. 
 
 t Ibid., at A. 869. Ware Ant., Cap. 24. 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 197 
 
 following year, soon after his return to Ireland with 
 a fleet of two hundred ships. By this event Ivar became 
 the chief of all the Northmen in that country ; but he also 
 ended his earthly career about two years after the demise of 
 his brother, and so left their mutual projects to be carried 
 out by some other of their countrymen. 
 
 Meanwhile the Danes of Dublin, — taking advantage of 
 the defenceless state of Munster, while Donogh, the son of 
 Dubhdavorean, king of Cashel, and Carroll, prince of 
 Ossory, were laying waste Connaught, — entered the southern 
 province and plundered and destroyed the Momonians 
 wherever they arrived. Little more is recorded respecting 
 the events of this reign, till the death of the monarch, 
 which happened on the 20th of November in the year 
 879. 
 
 Instead of employing their time in securing and forti- 
 fying those places that were so frequently visited by the 
 marauding foe, the rulers of the Irish nation had contracted 
 such a propensity for military enterprise, that they could 
 not resist the temptation which a little respite from their 
 foreign enemies presented to their view : and no sooner 
 was Flann Sionna, the son of Malachy, chosen to succeed 
 the late monarch than, for some cause which is unknown 
 to us, he invaded the province of Munster, which had been 
 sufficiently harassed before by the Danes. The provincial 
 king, having been taken by surprise, was quite unprepared 
 for this hostile invasion of his dominions ; and his subjects 
 were, in consequence, plundered without mercy, and many 
 of them carried away into captivity. The king of Ulster 
 was, about the same time, murdered in an inhuman manner 
 by his own subjects ; and several other cases of cruelty 
 
198 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 tarnished that period, in which the country was enjoying a 
 little respite from the atrocities of their foreign enemies. 
 
 Notwithstanding the Scandinavian power was at this 
 time gradually diminishing, the Northmen were still able to 
 embroil the natives in continual trouble and embarrassments. 
 In the year 884 they entered Kildare, and, after plundering 
 it, carried away Suibhne, the prior, a prisoner to their 
 ships, besides two hundred and eighty other persons.* In 
 three years after, they laid waste and pillaged Ardbraccan, in 
 Meath ; and about the same time they engaged the forces 
 of the monarch and gained a complete victory over them. 
 A few years subsequently, they plundered Kildare again, 
 laid waste Clonard, and, having entered Armagh and set 
 fire to the town, they carried off with them seven hundred 
 and ten captives. They were, however, defeated by the 
 men of Tyrconnell in an engagement, in which two of their 
 chieftains, named Amlane and Gluntradna, were slain.f 
 
 It would be impossible to pursue these ruthless incen- 
 diaries through all the scenes of murder, rapine and deso- 
 lation in which they were so often engaged ; as they lost 
 no opportunity that was afforded them, either by the fac- 
 tions of the natives, or by the crazy state of the government, 
 to carry terror and destruction into every part of the country 
 that lay open to their incursions. 
 
 The most celebrated prince that flourished in Ireland 
 about this time was Cormac Mac Cuillenan, of whose 
 talents and piety much has been said by the writers of the 
 period in which he lived. He was born about the year 
 
 * See Lanigan's Eccles. Hist, Vol. III., p. 346. 
 t Annals of InniBfallen, A. D. 896. 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAK. 199 
 
 837 ; and was of the Eugenian branch of the royal house 
 of Munster ; but of his juvenile years we have nothing 
 recorded. It is obvious, however, from his literary acquire- 
 ments, that his youth must have been spent in the retire- 
 ment of a collegiate life. Before his elevation to the throne 
 of Munster he had been consecrated Bishop of Cashel ; and 
 thus united the crosier with the sceptre, as he continued 
 to retain the episcopal office to the end of his life.* 
 
 Some time after Cormac's accession to the throne of 
 Munster, which took place in the year 902, we are informed 
 that the monarch Flann, accompanied by Carroll, king of 
 Leinster, marched an army towards the southern province- 
 and laid waste the whole country between Gowran and 
 Limerick.f The cause of this outrage was a quarrel which 
 had taken place between the* Momonian and Lagenian 
 princes, in which the latter had applied to the monarch 
 for redress but the former had refused to yield to Flann's 
 determination.! Cormac, however, instigated by his con- 
 fidential adviser Flaherty, the abbot of Inniscathy, an 
 eloquent, artful, and ambitious man, set out with the forces 
 of Munster and marched into the country of the south 
 Hy-Niall. Apprised of this movement of the Momonian 
 army, the monarch lost no time in collecting his troops, and 
 quickly met the invaders on the heath of Moy-Lena, in 
 the King's County. The battle soon commenced, and 
 Flann was defeated by the provincialists, and was obliged 
 to give hostages to Cormac for his future line of conduct 
 
 * See Lanigan, ut supra^ p. 349. 
 t Annals of Innisfallen, A. D. 908, 
 } O'Con. Dissert., p. 232. 
 
200 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 towards the Momonians. But the troops of the latter 
 made an insolent use of their victory, for they proceeded 
 westward towards Roscommon ; and, having ravaged that 
 country and plundered the island of Lough-Ree, together 
 with a fleet that lay there, they compelled the Conacians 
 and some of the Hy-Nialls to submit and give hostages- 
 Even the king's own hereditary iiomains in Meath did not 
 escape their resentment. 
 
 A. D. 908. Goaded by the insolence of a triumphant 
 ecclesiastic, the monarch of Ireland made every effort to 
 repair his disgrace. In conjunction with the princes of 
 Connaught, Leinster, and the south Hy-Niall, he raised a 
 great army and met the forces of his enemy at Ballymoon, 
 in the county of Carlow. The troops of Munster were 
 completely defeated in the battle which ensued; and 
 Cormac himself was killed, together with a great number 
 of chieftains and nobles ; besides about six thousand of his 
 followers.* His head was carried to Flann, after the 
 battle, by some of the soldiers ; but that generous prince, 
 far from enjoying a spectacle so disgusting, ordered 
 those that brought it out of his presence, wept over it, 
 and, according to some, went even so far as to kiss it. He 
 then commanded his body to be sought for, and when 
 found, it is said, that it was conveyed to Cashel and interred 
 there.f 
 
 There is much, that is fabulous connected with both the 
 life and death of this royal ecclesiastic. Some state that 
 he was killed by the Danes ; others that his death was 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, 'A. D. 908. 
 t Ware, ut supra, 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 201 
 
 occasioned by his falling with his horse down a precipice 
 made slippery by the blood of the slain ; while a third party 
 assert that he did not engage in the battle at all, but, having 
 retired to pray for the success of his army, he was put 
 to death by a herdsman who happened to come up at the 
 time.* 
 
 This celebrated prince, who was reluctantly drawn into 
 collision with the moaarch by the belligerent abbot of 
 Inniscathy, has been considered as one of the most eminent 
 men in Ireland at this period. His historical remains, 
 entitled the Psalter of Cashel, in which he treated of the 
 history and antiquities of Ireland, were in the hands of 
 Sir James Ware and of several antiquarians of the seven- 
 teenth century ; f but are now probably lost, with the 
 exception of some fragments that have been preserved by 
 the industry of later writers.^ The beautiful little church, 
 now called Corm c's Chapel, which stands on the rock of 
 Cashel, and which is certainly one of the most curious of 
 Irish ruins, is said by popular tradition to have been erected 
 by this prince. But whether it was intended for a cathe- 
 dral, for which it appears to have been too small, or merely 
 for a royal chapel annexed to the residence of the king, 
 which was situated also on the summit of the rock, is a 
 matter which we are now altogether unable to determine. 
 
 • See Ware's Bishops, at Cormac. 
 
 t "Ware's Ant., Cap. 21, and Bishops of Cashel : Cormac. 
 
 X The Psalter of Cashel '* has been considered as of the highest 
 authority, and was still extant entire in the I7th century, and 
 if probably so somewhere at present ; although I know only 
 of some parts of it which are to be found." Lan. Eccles, Hist, 
 V. III.^ P. 355, 
 
 N 
 
202 , HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Amongst the prisoners that were taken in the battle in 
 which Cormac lost his life, the abbot of Inniscathy, the 
 principal instigator of the war, was the most distinguished. 
 
 It is said that the people of Leinster were so much exas- 
 perated against him for his conduct that they upbraided 
 him, as he was led along, in the most opprobrious language. 
 
 He was imprisoned and treated with considerable severity 
 during the life of Carroll. When released from his confine- 
 ment, he retired to his monastery and continued there till 
 the throne of Munster became vacant by the death of 
 Cormac's successor, to which he was then called as the 
 next heir.* 
 
 The monarch Flann, a short time after his accession to 
 the throne, had espoused Malmaria, the widow of his pre- 
 decessor, and the daughter of the famous Kenneth Mac 
 Alpine, the king of the Albanian Scots. f By her first 
 marriage she had become the mother of Niall Glundubh,J 
 who in 916, succeeded Flann, after a long reign of upwards 
 of thirty-six years. This prince came to the throne 
 with considerable advantages ; but these were counterbal- 
 anced by fresh invasions from the Northmen to aid their 
 friends, already too powerful in Ireland. The unsound 
 policy of Niall's predecessor had given the foreigners full 
 leisure to establish their power ; and, as they clearly per- 
 ceived, from the dissensions that prevailed amongst the 
 
 • Warner, Yol. II., p. 138. 
 
 f "By this alliance with each of the main alternate branches 
 of the Hy-Niall family, the Tyronian, Clancolman, and Slanian 
 branches were re-united, to the exclusion of the Tyrconnel 
 branch." Wills' Lives, c, p. 184. 
 
 % O'Conor's Dissert., p. 234. 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 203 
 
 native princes, that the times were favourable to their 
 designs, they only waited for reinforcements from their 
 own country, to attempt the reduction of the kingdom once 
 more to a state of slavery and subjection. 
 
 Buoyant with hope and sanguine in their expectations, 
 the Northmen soon fitted out a fleet and directed their 
 course to the shores of Ireland. A part of them arrived 
 in Ulster ; but they were quickly met by the monarch at 
 the head of a considerable force. In the battle which ensued^ 
 the foreigners were defeated with great slaughter. The 
 victorious natives, however, purchased the day very dearly, 
 most of their principal officers and the flower of their troops 
 having fallen in'the combat. The following year a fresh 
 party of Danes entered the harbour of Dublin ; and, having 
 been joined by such of their countrymen as could be mus^ 
 tered upon the occasion, they invaded the province of 
 Leinster and spread terror and desolation everywhere 
 around them. A battle was fought between them and the 
 provincialists on the plains of Kinfuad, near Timolin, in 
 the country of Kildare,* in which the Lagenians were 
 defeated with great carnage ; and many princes and nobles 
 of the greatest distinction were sacrificed to the fury of the 
 invaders. 
 
 Animated by the success which attended their arms, 
 the Scandinavians invited more of their countrymen to 
 their assistance, and having received fresh supplies from 
 the shores of the Baltic they began to contemplate the 
 entire conquest of the kingdom. Their fleet, which ap- 
 peared in the harbour of Dublin, in 919, was commanded 
 
 * See Seward's Topog. Hibern : Kinpuad. 
 
204 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 by Godfrey, tlie son of Ivar, to whose superior capacity 
 they had been indebted for their late victory. Uniting 
 therefore all their forces, they attacked Dublin with incred- 
 ible fury, and, after a gallant resistance, that city was taken 
 sword in hand, and the garrison cut to pieces without any 
 quarter. 
 
 These uncommon successes of an enemy whom the natives 
 had seldom engaged without a certainty of victory soon 
 alarmed ; all the provinces and the most hostile factions 
 began at length to coalesce in support of their common 
 country. Ivar and Sitric, who commanded the foreigners, 
 having changed their operations into a defensive war, made 
 strong entrenchments about Dublin, which was their capital 
 hold, and were resolved to abide the issue of any attack of 
 the native Irish. But the monarch, in attempting to take 
 the city by storm at Kilmosamog,* had the whole of his 
 forces cut to pieces, and lost his own life in the attempt. 
 
 The death of the monarch, however, was amply avenged 
 on the enemy in the following year by Donogh, the son of 
 Flann Sionna, and the second monarch of that name, who 
 had succeeded to the imperial government of the kingdom. 
 When called to the throne he gave some indications of 
 spirit and energy, but his people were subsequently disap- 
 pointed in their expectations respecting him. Having 
 collected and reinforced his troops, his first care was to 
 lead them forth without any loss of time against the common 
 enemy of his country. Elated with their recent successes, 
 the Danes were by no means unwilling to engage in the 
 
 * Kilmosamog was formerly a church and parish which lay 
 S. W. of the city.— 0' Con. Dissert.,j^. 236. 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 205 
 
 contest. They even marched into Meath to meet the 
 monarch's forces ; but were routed in so complete a manner, 
 notwithstanding the great abilities of Ivar their general, 
 that their loss in this battle amply compensated for that of 
 the Irish in the preceding year.^ In order to cut off their 
 Tetreat, Donogh dispatched flying parties that intercepted 
 them in their flight. He succeeded also in destroying all 
 their garrisons and strongholds, so that nothing remained 
 to them in Leinster and Meath but the city of Dublin, 
 which was too well fortified, and had a garrison that was 
 too formidable for him to attempt its reduction at that 
 time. 
 
 Meanwhile the province of Munster was greatly disturbed 
 by the collision of different parties who contended for the 
 throne. Had a spirit of patriotism, in the slightest degree, 
 influenced the minds of these belligerent' factions, they 
 might have easily settled their disputes in a more amicable 
 manner than by shedding the blood that ought to have 
 been expended in the expulsion of their oppressors. But, 
 amongst the most extraordinary characters of this time, 
 Ceallachan, who ascended the provincial throne during the 
 reign of this monarch, and Murkertach, or Murtogh, the 
 roydamna of the kingdom, occupy a prominent and con- 
 spicuous place. 
 
 Having obtained the crown of Munster to the prejudice 
 of Kennedy, the son of Lorcan, Ceallachan was called at 
 once to repel the bold and insolent incursions of the Danes. , 
 He called his chieftains together, exhorted them to arm 
 everywhere against the foreigners, and, at the head of the 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A. D. 920. * 
 
206 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 forces of Munster, defeated the Northmen in two battles, 
 one in the country of the Deasies and the other in Ossory, 
 in which two thousand of their troops were killed.* In 
 these and several other engagements which followed each 
 other rapidly, the advantage was on the side of the provincial 
 troops ; and in one of them the wife and sister of the Danish 
 general were taken prisoners, and were treated by Cealla- 
 chan with great politeness till their release. By these 
 misfortunes the Northmen were reduced to such diffi- 
 culties that the greater part of them at length relinquished 
 the province of Munster and joined their countrymen in 
 Dublin and its adjacent territories, appointing Sitric their 
 general, to be their king.f 
 
 But notwithstanding these partial efforts on the part of 
 the king of Munster to oppose the Northmen in the south- 
 ern province, he appears to have been no real friend of his 
 country. Destitute of those high principles of rectitude 
 which lend an ornament to grandeur, and make even royalty 
 itself more magnificent, he not only sometimes leagued 
 with the common enemy, but was frequently found imita- 
 ting that sacrilegious example which they had set him by 
 the plunder of the temples of the most High, and the oppres- 
 sion and persecution of those who had devoted themselves 
 to his service. Possessed of a considerable degree of craft 
 and insinuation, he contrived to render himself popular ; 
 but the whole of his career is marked with that abject subjec- 
 tion to his own domineering passions which indicates a 
 bad man and a worse ruler. Having pillaged the venerable 
 
 ♦ Ibid., at A. D. 914. 
 
 t Warner,Vol. II., p. UL 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. ' 207 
 
 monastery of Clonmacnoise, lie invaded Meath in the follow 
 ing year, in which he was assisted by the Danes; and 
 without any regard to that veneration with which sacred 
 things should be always esteemed, this sacrilegious chieftain 
 plundered the abbey of Clonenagh and the church of Cilia- 
 chin, or Cillaice,* from both of which he carried off the 
 abbots. 
 
 The conduct of Ceallachan forms a striking contrast with 
 that of Murtogh, the roydamna, by whom he was checked 
 in his career of violence, and reduced to a condition of the 
 most abject humiliation. This latter prince, who was the 
 son of Nial Glundubh, had signalized himself as much by 
 sacrificing every just resentment to the interests of his 
 country, as by the numerous splendid victories he obtained 
 over its enemies. Generous and sincere, he sometimes laid 
 himself open to the artifices of the designing, and Ceal 
 lachan endeavoured to ensnare him by negociation, but he 
 became the victim of his own treachery. Murtogh having 
 entered his territories, seized upon his person, and with a 
 numerous train of other captives led him to Tyrone, and 
 delivered him a prisoner into the hands of the monarch. 
 This brave prince, of whom has been justly said, that 
 "of all enemies, he was the most generous — of all com- 
 manders the most affable," f — was killed at Ardee, in a 
 battle with the Danes, and his rank as roydomna devolved 
 on Congalach, the son of Maolmitheach. 
 
 The history of Ceallachan and of his military exploit 
 forms a prominent feature in the records of those times, 
 
 * Seward's Topog. Hib. Cillaice. 
 t 0' Con. Dissert, p. 238. 
 
208 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 and, had his character been untarnished by. his own selfish 
 passions, these exploits would no doubt have placed him very 
 high up in the list of fame. It is said, but upon very ques- 
 tionable authority, that Sitric, with the approbation of the 
 monarch, formed a deep-laid conspiracy, under the pretence 
 of a marriage with his sister, to get the king of Munster into 
 his hands, and succeeded in the attempt. But the Momon- 
 ians, having collected all their forces, marched first to 
 Armagh, and afterwards to Dundalk, whither the royal pri- 
 soner had been removed ; and after a most desperate naval 
 engagement at the latter place between the Danish fleet 
 and that of Munster, the latter succeeded in rescuing their 
 king and brought him back in triumph to his dominions.* 
 For some time after the accession of Donogh, the reigning 
 monarch, he had raised the expectations of his people, and 
 they hoped that he would prove the deliverer of his country 
 from the iron grasp of its foreign oppressors ; but in this 
 they were dreadfully dissappointed. He had it in his 
 power to do much towards this desirable end, but he had 
 neither the courage nor the patriotism to make the effort. He 
 acted merely as a passive spectator while his dominions were 
 being plundered, his people oppressed beyond measure, and 
 every thing that was holy or valuable in the land was becom- 
 ing a prey to a ruthless horde of barbarians. The people 
 themselves, it is true, sometimes rose with resistless energy 
 against their oppressors, but they received no encourage- 
 ment from the example of their monarch. One of the most 
 remarkable instances of desperate bravery on the part of 
 the populace occurred in the reign of this monarch at the 
 
 » O'Hal, Hist., Book XI., Chap. HI, 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 209 
 
 great annual fair held at Eoscreaonthe29th of June A.D. 
 942. As tlie concourse of people was always great upon 
 such occasions, the Danes of Limerick and of Connaught 
 entered into a conspiracy to attack them suddenly, and 
 after a general massacre to make themselves masters of the 
 booty which they reasonably expected to find then in the 
 place. At their approach to Roscrea, under the command 
 Olfinn, one of their most ferocious and daring leaders, the 
 people were unsuspectingly engaged in their usual pursuits. 
 They had, however, owing to the danger of the times, in 
 some measure prepared for a treacherous attack by arming 
 themselves for their own defence. The first intimation 
 they received of the proximity of the Danes, was from some 
 flying peasants of the neighbouring country; and they 
 instantly resolved to meet them manfully, and stand in 
 their own defence. They therefore received the attack of 
 the enemy with firmness, and returned it with such vigour 
 and impetuosity that the Danes were thrown into confusion, 
 and by following up the impression they had made, the 
 Irish soon reaped the reward of their bravery ; and their 
 opponents abandoned the field, leaving, it is said, no less 
 than four thousand of their number dead behind them, 
 among whom was Olfinn, their daring and ferocious leader. 
 By the sudden death of Donogh, the monarch, after 
 a useless reign of twenty-five years, the throne of Ireland 
 being left vacant, Congalach, a grandson of Flann Sionna's 
 on the mother's side, and the sixth in descent from Hugh 
 Slaine, succeeded, in 944, to the monarchy. His close connex- 
 ion with the Tyrone and Clan-Colman families facilitated 
 his accession to the sovereignty of Ireland, although his 
 family, by his father's side, had been excluded from that 
 
210 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 honour for two' hundred and seventeen years. Roderick 
 O'Cananan, who was then at the head of the other 
 excluded house of Tyrconnel, was a man of great genius, 
 and possessed of sufficient power to support those preten- 
 sions which he had set up. For some time he joined with 
 Congalach in carrying on a war with the Danes ; but after 
 they had laid waste Dublin, and killed an incredible 
 number of foreigners in the field, he turned his arms 
 against the monarch himself, drove him out of his heredi- 
 tary country of Meath, got himself, by a military election, 
 proclaimed king of Ireland, and received the homage of 
 some of the provincial princes. He next marched his 
 forces to Dublin, where he obtained a signal victory over 
 the Northmen ; but Roderick was accidentally slain at the 
 close of the victory.^ 
 
 Relieved from the usurper of his regal dignity, 
 Congalach hastened to take vengeance on the people of 
 Munster for their ready submission to Roderick. But not 
 having made a sufficient provision for the security of his 
 possessions at home, the Danes of Dublin, taking advantage 
 of this neglect, plundered and laid waste the country of the 
 Hy-Nialls without mercy. As soon as the monarch was 
 informed of these proceedings, he returned from Munster 
 to drive off the invaders ; but he drew upon himself the 
 arms of Domnall O'Niall, who had hitherto refrained from 
 all hostiUty towards him. At length the Lagenians and 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen at A.D. 950. — '' The Four Masters,'' 
 says Dr. Lanigan, "assign this battle to 948. They swell 
 the number of the Northmen that fell to 6,000, too great a mul- 
 titude, I think, for the battles of those times." — Eccles. Hist.^ 
 Chap. xxii. Note (141.) 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 211 
 
 the foreigners of Ulster and Leinster, having entered into 
 a conspiracy against him, he held a council of his follow- 
 ers on the banks of the LiiFey, and marched thence to 
 the city of Dublin. Here the Scandinavians amused him 
 with a show of submission to his demands, and their policy 
 had the desired effect. But falling upon him unawares at 
 Toi-Gioghrana, they slew him, and cut to pieces a conside- 
 rable part of his army. 
 
 Congalach was an active and enterprising prince ; but 
 the period of his government, which lasted upwards of 
 twelve years, was one of constant disturbance, principally 
 through the unceasing activity of the Danes ; but also in a 
 great measure, in consequence of the dissensions that pre- 
 vailed amongst the Irish princes themselves. He was 
 capable of rendering great services to his country, had not 
 his accession to the throne, contrary to the established usage 
 of the kingdom, involved him in difficulties which rendered 
 his reign unfortunate. Of the last six years of his adminis- 
 tration the records are imperfect; but they must have 
 given birth to events of much historical interest, inas- 
 much as the Danes had become excedingly formidable from 
 an alliance which they had formed with some of the 
 Leinster princes. Under the command of Godfrey, a son 
 of Sitric, both the Danes and Irish plundered and destroyed 
 many districts of the kingdom, and failed not to rob the 
 churches and monasteries wherever they went ; whilst the 
 monarch was unable to give them that effectual resistance 
 which he so obviously desired. 
 
 Nor was the brave prince Domnall 0'Nial,who succeeded 
 him in 957, (although his right of succession was undoubted) 
 more successful in commanding the obedience of the 
 
212 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 refractory princes over whom he presided. He was the 
 grandson of Niall Glundubh, by his son Murtagh ; and soon 
 after his inauguration, Daniel, the son of the late monarch 
 Congalach, leagued with the Danes and Lagenians for the 
 purpose of supporting his own pretensions to the throne. 
 In this, however, he was unsuccessful ; but still the reigning 
 monarch learned thereby that his possession of the sove- 
 reignty was insecure and precarious. During twenty-four 
 years he was harassed from every quarter of his dominions ; 
 and such was the deplorable state to which the nation was 
 reduced, that all public harmony became absolutely lost. 
 The kings of Munster, Connaught, and Leinster, all in their 
 turn, disturbed his administration ; and even the Clan 
 Colman race sometimes took up arms against him. Feeling 
 therefore at length tired out with the mere pageantry of 
 royalty and disgusted with the world, he resigned his crown 
 and retired to a monastery in Armagh, where he ended his 
 days as a monk, and was succeeded by Malachythe Second, 
 the son of Domnald, prince of Meath, and grandson to the 
 monarch Donogh.* 
 
 During the reign of Congalach, and whilst Ceallachan 
 the king of Munster was employed in pillaging the churches 
 and monasteries, it is said, the Danes of Dublin embraced 
 Christianity,! and sent their first bishop to Canterbury 
 to receive the episcopal consecration. This event is 
 worthy of attention, as in time it efi"Gcted a change which 
 all the flattery of princes and prelates had been hitherto 
 
 * O'Hal. Hist. Book xi. Chap. V.—Domnald O'Niall was the 
 sixteenth and last monarch of the Tyrone line, and the forty- 
 sixth of the Hy-Niall race. 
 
 t This year the Danes of Dublin received the Christian reli- 
 gion and were baptized." An. of Innisf alien at A. D. 948, 
 
THE SECOND DANISH WAR. 2l3 
 
 unable to accomplish. The schism, which commenced by 
 the engraftment of a foreign branch of the church on the 
 religion of the ancient Irish, was for many generations 
 acknowledged by both the natives and the foreigners ; and 
 the spirit it engendered, in all probability, exists amongst 
 the people, without understanding its real merits, to the 
 present day. 
 
 It is possible that individuals of these foreigners may 
 have received the doctrines of the gospel previously to this 
 period. Some of them also may have become acquainted 
 with its truths in their native land ; for as early as the 
 year 829, Christianity had been introduced into Sweden 
 by Anscharius, the Bishop of Bremen ; but the Danes of 
 Dublin were the first of their nation that, in any large body 
 in Ireland, made a profession of the Christian faith. This 
 event was commemorated by their founding the abbey of 
 St. Mary's near Dublin, the same year in which it took 
 place. Their conversion, however, appears to have been 
 only nominal, as it did not prevent them from carrying on 
 that system of plunder, massacre, and general devastation, 
 which, in the time of their predecessors, had prevailed in 
 every part of the land. But two years after their supposed 
 conversion they plundered and burned Slane, so that many 
 persons assembled in its belfry, or cloictheach, perished in 
 the flames.* In a short time after we find them exer- 
 cising their wonted cruelties in Meath, and robbing the 
 churches and monasteries of that country which they after- 
 wards burned to the ground. In fine the same thirst 
 for blood and plunder which influenced their pagan prede- 
 cessors, was found in the breasts of those supposed converts 
 to the religion of Christ. 
 
 * Ware's Ant., 0. XXIV. ----■— ~-~—--——^ 
 
214 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Brien Boroihme. 
 
 Whilst the Northmen were engaged in plundering and 
 oppressing the people of Ireland, Brien Boroihme, or, as 
 he is more commonly called, Born, so celebrated in the 
 annals of those times, was commencing that glorious and 
 distinguished career which terminated only with his long 
 and virtuous life. Mahon, his elder brother and predeces- 
 sor in the government of North Munster, was a prince of 
 great valour and intrepidity. During the time that he sat 
 upon the throne of Thomond,* the Danes were in the 
 habit of annoying and pillaging his dominions ; and being 
 in possession of almost all the strongholds in that province, 
 they were enabled with the greater facility, by sudden and 
 unexpected sallies, to effect their purposes of plunder and 
 devastation. Finding himself unable to meet them in the 
 field, Mahon, for some time, assisted by his brother, watched 
 every opportunity that presented itself for the purpose of 
 surprising and cutting off their different detached parties ; 
 and such was the success attendant upon this method of 
 carrying on the war that his reputation and influence 
 became every day more extensive. 
 
 * "The country of Thomond had a king of its own, and con- 
 sisted of all the lands from Slighe Dala, known otherwise by the 
 name of Bealach Mar, in Ossory, to Leim Congeulion, in the 
 west of Carca Baisain." Keating^ vol. ii., p. 202. 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 216 
 
 A. J). 968. Alarmed by the measures adopted by the 
 king of Munster, the foreigners who had settled in Cork, 
 Limerick, and Waterford, entered into a confederacy to 
 crush, if possible, that power which had begun to prove so 
 fatal to their enterprises ; and for this purpose, three thou- 
 sand chosen men were placed under the command of Muiris, 
 one of their chieftains. While this body of men were on 
 their march from Cashel to Limerick, the troops of Tho- 
 mond hovered about them ; and embraced every opportu- 
 nity, in front and rear, of harassing them as they advanced. 
 At length, at a noted pass named Sulchoid, perceiving an 
 advantage favourable to their designs, they attacked the 
 Northmen with such resistless fury and impetuosity, that 
 the latter were driven into confusion ; and, notwithstanding 
 all the efforts of their leaders to re-animate them, they began 
 to give way on every side. This trepidation was consider- 
 ably increased by the slaughter that ensued. Immense 
 numbers of the foreigners were cut to pieces, their principal 
 leaders and officers were lost; and the remainder, having 
 made their escape towards Limerick, were pursued so closely 
 and eagerly by the Irish, that the latter entered the town 
 together with themselves ; and having put all to the sword 
 who seemed disposed to make any resistance, they broke 
 down the walls in several places, and set fire to all the gates 
 of the city.* 
 
 Mahon's subsequent success against the Concacians, the 
 Danes, and the Martini of Munster, after he had become 
 king of the whole province, excited the envy of some of 
 the inferior princes of the tribe of the Eoganachts ; and 
 
 Annals of Tnnisfallen, at A.D. 968. 
 
216 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 particularly that of Maolmuadh, the son of Brien, who 
 could not bear to see him so well secured in the possession 
 of the provincial throne. He found that Mahon's super- 
 ior intrepidity gave him a decided advantage over all his 
 opponents ; that he was daily increasing in popularity ; and 
 that when he himself had leagued with the common enemy, 
 and endeavoured by this means to gratify hiB envious hostil- 
 ity against his king, he was disappointed in his expectations, 
 as Mahon defeated their whole combined forces in two 
 different battles.* Despairing therefore of success by open 
 force, he had recourse to treachery ; and having got the 
 king into his power under the pretence of settling their 
 differences amicably, he had him seized and carried off to 
 the county of Cork, where he was basely murdered by a 
 dynast of that country.f 
 
 A. D. 976. On the death of Mahon his brother Brien 
 ascended the throne, and directed his attention immedi- 
 ately to the state of the province. His first care was to 
 seek a just retribution for the murder of Mahon, and 
 to avenge the treachery by which that crime had been 
 accomplished. The place of Mahon's death was a lonesome 
 region among mountains and forests near Macroom ; and 
 in this secluded and inaccessible wild Maolmuadh had 
 entrenched himself, hoping by the assistance of the Danes, 
 whom he had associated with his own followers, not only to 
 retain his position if attacked by an enemy, but to signa- 
 lize himself by the defeat of a rival who was the object of 
 his hatred and detestation. But the king of Munster, who 
 
 * O'Hal, Vol. III., p. 233. 
 
 t Annals of Innisfallen at An. 976. 
 
BRIEN BOEOIHME. 217 
 
 had long been accustomed to that species of warfare which 
 was carried on in the mountains and forests of the southern 
 province, possessed too much skill and dexterity to be 
 baffled in his designs upon this occasion ; and having ascer- 
 tained that a strong reinforcement under the command of 
 O'Donovan, which was expected by Maolmuadh, had not 
 yet come up to his assistance, he contrived to intercept 
 them and gained a complete victory over them before 
 they could form a junction with their perfidious ally 
 Then with the rapidity of an eagle pouncing on her prey 
 and with purposes of inexorable vengeance existing in his 
 breast, he turned upon the principal object of his resent- 
 ment; defeated his party with incredible slaughter; and 
 Maolmuadh himself fell by the hand of Brien's heroic son 
 Morrogh, on the very spot on which had been committed 
 that deed of treachery and blood which was the cause of 
 the present engagement. 
 
 Brien, who was familiar with dangers and a stranger to 
 fear, was not content with taking vengeance upon a 
 petty toparch, or punishing the treachery of an obscure 
 chieftain, but his next regard was to the interests of the 
 province, over which he had been placed by the death of 
 his brother. All the islands in the Shannon were at this 
 time in the hands of the Danes; and the country on both 
 sides of that river was constantly harassed by their sudden 
 predatory excursions from these insular retreats. The beauti- 
 ful little island of Scattery,then called Innis-Catha, rendered 
 venerable in the eyes of the natives by a thousand recollec- 
 tions, had long been in their possession. It had been formerly 
 a Bishop's see, said to have been founded in the fifth 
 century by St. Senanus, and still presents some of the 
 
218 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 remains of the tomb of that prelate. The ruins of the 
 Cathedral, eleven churches, and several cells are still to be 
 seen on the eastern extremity of the island, together with a 
 round tower, one hundred and twenty feet high, which 
 forms a very attractive object, as well as a useful landmark 
 in the mouth of the Shannon.* This island Brien was 
 resolved to rescue from the hands of the Danes, and there- 
 fore, having prepared a number of boats and larger vessels, 
 at the head of a strong body of men chosen from the tribe 
 of the Dalgais, he landed in the island, and defeated the 
 possessors with prodigious slaughter. Taking advantage 
 of the temporary prostration caused amongst his enemies 
 by this successful enterprise, as well as of the lively 
 feeling which it propagated throughout his own party, he 
 seized and plundered all the islands which the foreigners 
 possessed in the Shannon, laid waste their settlements, and 
 made himself master of the spoils. 
 
 A. D. 979, Brien's success in military enterprises, 
 before he had ascended the throne of Munster, had fre- 
 quently excited the envy of some of the princes of that pro- 
 vince ; and it was probably owing to the same cause that 
 Donald O'Faolan, prince of the Deasies, having leagued 
 with the Danes of Waterford, invaded the territories of 
 the king of Munster, and with all the rancorous malignity 
 of a bitter foe, spread terror and desolation amongst the 
 inhabitants. Brien, however, having received intelligence 
 of these hostilities collected his troops together and came up 
 with the enemy at a place called Fanmacurra ; and after a 
 vigorous but short resistance they were entirely routed. 
 
 Fitzg«rald and McGregor's Hist, of Lim. Vol. II., p. 526. 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 219 
 
 Perceiving the bad success of his forces, the prince of the 
 Deasies began to seek his safety by flight ; but Brien's 
 troops, not content with the victory they had gained, pur- 
 sued his followers vigorously to the city of Waterford, 
 and, entering the town together with the fugitives, they 
 put them all to the sword ; in which indiscriminate slaugh- 
 ter O'Faolan himself was numbered with the slain. The 
 city was then sacked and plundered by the conquerors, and, 
 after the booty had been sent away, it was set on fire in 
 many places and consumed to ashes. 
 
 The fame of this exploit soon added to the celebrity 
 which Brien had already acquired. He got hostages from 
 all the chiefs and princes of Munster ; and every part of 
 the province submitted to his sway.^ Having thus secured 
 the internal peace and good order of his dominions his next 
 care was to give vigour to the laws, and to improve the 
 face and circumstances of the country. The churches, 
 monasteries, bridges, and public roads were objects of imme- 
 diate and sedulous attention. The lands, of which the 
 natives had been dispossessed by the Danes, were restored 
 to the heirs of their original proprietors ; and such of the 
 foreigners as did not choose to embrace the Christian 
 religion were allowed twelve months to settle their affairs 
 and to quit the kingdom. f 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A.D. 977-979. 
 
 t " So exact was his police, that it stands on record that a 
 beautiful virgin travelled from one extremity of the province to 
 another, with a gold ring on the top of a Trhite wand, without 
 receiving the least injury or molestation ! Probably Brien him- 
 self might have directed the experiment to be made." — O^Hal, 
 Hist. Vol. III., ^. 241. 
 
220 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 When Malachy had succeeded to the sovereign throne, 
 his first object was to lead his troops against the Danes, 
 who had invaded Meath with a powerful army ; and having 
 vanquished them in the field, he laid waste the district 
 of Fingal, advanced to Dublin, and in conjunction with 
 Donogh, the king of Ulster, he took that city by assault on 
 the third day of the siege. Such was his success at this 
 time, against the foreigners, that he obliged them to accept 
 whatever terms he pleased to impose upon them ; espe- 
 cially that of giving up all the captives in their power, 
 and amongst the rest, Congal Claon, king of Leinster, an 
 inconstant, seditious man, who returned the services ren- 
 dered him on this occasion in the basest and most 
 ungenerous manner. A proclamation was then issued in 
 the monarch's name, for the deliverance of such of his sub- 
 jects as were in servitude ; and public thanksgiving to God 
 was ordered throughout his dominions for the success of 
 his arms.* 
 
 But, notwithstanding that the triumph of the Irish over 
 their foreign enemies must have been highly gratifying to the 
 monarch, his jealousy was excited by the growing power 
 and influence of the king of Munster. In the first year 
 of Malachy's reign, Brien marched into Ossory, made Mac- 
 Gilla-Patrick, the chief of that territory, prisoner and com- 
 pelled all the Ossorian chieftains to deliver him hostages for 
 their future good behaviour. The following year, he 
 reduced the Lagenians to the necessity of acknowledging his 
 authority in the same manner, and the kings of that prov- 
 ince were obliged to submit to him. He next marched 
 
 ^ * See O'Conor's Dissert., p. 243. 
 
BKIEN BOROIHME. 221 
 
 to Cork and chastised the citizens for their rebellion, altered 
 the magistrates of that city, and carried away hostages from 
 them. 
 
 A.D. 982. The rapid success of this heroic and enterpris- 
 ing prince soon stimulated the envy and jealousy of the mo- 
 narch into overt acts of violence and outrage, without any 
 provocation that could justify such a line of conduct. He 
 invaded Munster, plundered the hereditary property of 
 Brien, cut down the ancient and venerable tree in the plain 
 of Adair, under the spreading branches of which the Dal- 
 cassian princes had always been inaugurated, and returned 
 to Tara loaded with the spoils of the Momonians. 
 
 These outrages would have been sufficient of themselves 
 to rouse the resentment of the king of Munster ; but the 
 monarch seemed not to have been content with what he 
 had already done, for in the following year he ravaged 
 Leinster which was then under the immediate protection 
 of the southern dynast. Incensed by these provocations, 
 Brien made every preparation for invading Meath and 
 Connaught. He marched against Malachy with a powerful 
 army, and forced him to agree to a treaty, by which it was 
 stipulated that the monarch should make restitution for the 
 outrages committed in the late invasion of Munster ; that 
 Brien should be recognized as king of Leath Mogha, or the 
 southern half of Ireland ; that the king of Leinster and 
 the Danes of Dublin should be subject to him ; and that 
 Malachy should govern LeithCuin, or the northern half of 
 the kingdom.^ 
 
 Between these two princes, whose quarrel was heredi- 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A.D. 981-983. 
 
222 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 tary, no treaty could give any permanent and lasting peace ; 
 and they carried on various wars with each other at dif- 
 ferent times, in which Brien had generally the advantage 
 of the monarch. Malachy was by no means satisfied that 
 the power of this provincial potentate had risen to so great 
 a height, but he found himself unable to contend with a 
 prince so wise in council and so able in the field. He 
 gained a victory, however, over Brien in 994 ; but the lat- 
 ter retaliated on him in the subsequent year by a complete 
 and decisive overthrow. At length a peace was concluded 
 between them, and IMalachy was again obliged to acknow- 
 ledge Brien's title to the sovereignty of the southern half 
 of the kingdom. The two kings then united and con- 
 jointly attacked the Northmen in several places, from 
 whom they obtained hostages for their future peaceable 
 demeanour. They routed the Danes of Dublin with incred- 
 ible slaughter, and put several of their chieftains of the 
 first quality and distinction to the sword.* But, notwith- 
 standing their success was so great, the foreigners were not 
 completely subdued ; for in the following year they were 
 found assisting Maolmurry in compelling Donogh, 
 the king of Leinster, to resign his crown to him. They 
 also plundered Kildare the same year ; but Brien, having 
 marched to Dublin, chastised them for their insolence; 
 burned many of their houses ; banished their king Sitric ; 
 and, having remained in the city for a week, carried off 
 much booty which he took from the marauders, f 
 
 Meanwhile the monarch began to sink into a spirit of 
 
 * See Annals, ut supra at A.D. 984-998, 
 t Ware Ant., 6. 24. 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 223 
 
 indolence and apathy, which formed a striking contrast with 
 the vigour and energy of his southern rival, as well as with 
 his own conduct during the first five years of his adminis- 
 tration. His time was no longer employed in recruiting 
 the number of his followers in arms, re-animating their 
 courage, fostering their spirit of bravery, and preparing for a 
 speedy and determined advance on the enemy. It is true that, 
 after a temporary reconciliation with Brien, he sometimes 
 exhibited a fitful energy in opposition to the common 
 enemy of his people ; but this spirit soon died away, and 
 whilst he gave way to his own indolent habits, he left Brien 
 to guard the safety of the country from the unceasing 
 inroads of its vigilant foes. 
 
 The contrast which the magnanimity, justice, and 
 patriotism of Brien Boru formed with the character and 
 conduct of such a monarch, could not fail to make a 
 powerful impression upon the minds of all who had the 
 interests of their country at heart. Continually in arms 
 against the foreigners and their Irish associates, Brien 
 was generally victorious ; and he not only obliged them to 
 acknowledge his authority in his own dominions, but he 
 assisted the Conacians against them, so that four thousand 
 Danes are said to have fallen in the battle of Succa alone.^ 
 With such a king as this at the head of the nation the 
 princes and chieftains in the difierent provinces 
 began to hope that the whole people would soon 
 experience those blessings of peace and subordination 
 which were then confined to the limits of Leath-Mogha, 
 They saw the spirit of infatuation that had seized on their 
 
 * O'Hal., Vol. 
 
224 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 passive and temporising monarcti, and, being convinced of 
 the desperate posture of their affairs under such a sovereign, 
 it was agreed in a meeting of the different states of Con- 
 naught, and Munster, to request Brien to assume the 
 monarchy ; and a resolution was entered into to support him 
 to the utmost, should he only consent to comply with 
 their desires. Deputies were, in consequence of this deter- 
 mination, sent to inform Malachy, that, as he neither 
 exerted himself to fulfil the duties of a monarch, nor to 
 protect his people from oppression and injury, it was the 
 desire of the States that he should resign his crown to one 
 who was more worthy and better qualified to wear it for 
 the good of the country. 
 
 Malachy, who had the year before committed some depre- 
 dations in Leinster, and had thereby provoked his more 
 powerful rival, heard this proposal with a mixture of indig- 
 nation and anxiety ; but, concealing the latter, he declared 
 his intention of maintaining his right against any prince 
 who should attempt to deprive him of his crown and dig- 
 nity. His conduct, however, had been such as determined 
 Brien with regard to the course which he was now to .pursue. 
 At the head of a considerable force, composed of Conacians 
 and Danes, as well as the troops of his own province, he 
 marched towards Tara, and having come up with the main 
 body of his antagonist's army, the latter found it adviseable 
 not to depend upon the issue of a battle, but yielded at 
 once to the terms he proposed, and promised him hostages 
 for the punctual fulfilment of all his engagements. 
 
 Malachy, it is obvious, only sought upon this occasion 
 an immediate respite from the dangers which threatened 
 him ; and had no intention of proving faithful, in future^ 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. ' 225 
 
 to the stipulated agreement. He endeavoured immediately 
 on Brien's departure to engap^e the princes of Connaught 
 and Ulster in his favour. He used every argument to 
 induce Hugh O'Niall, at that time the most powerful chief- 
 tain in the north, to espouse his cause ; and even the 
 Abbot of Bangor remonstrated with the former on behalf of 
 the monarch : but O'Niall's answer was such as convinced 
 Malachy that it was in vain for him to struggle in opposition 
 to the tide of popular feehng which had set in so strongly 
 against him. That chieftain observed, "that when the crown 
 of Tara was possessed by his ancestors of the house of 
 Tyrone, they bravely defended it against all claimants ; that 
 Brien was a prince, whose virtues, bravery, and patriotism, 
 merited the applause of all good men ; and that he could 
 not think of unsheathing his sword against the gallant tribe 
 of the Dalgais, whose military prowess he had so long 
 admired. 
 
 A. D. 1001. In the meantime Brien, who was fully 
 apprised of the monarch's movements, as well as of the feelings 
 of the people that were so strong in his own favour, marched 
 with an army again into Meath, and appearing in the plains 
 of Tara, compelled Malachy, not only to submit and give him 
 hostages, but, in the presence of the princes and chiefs of 
 the land, to make a formal surrender of the crown and 
 regalia of Ireland to him, and to content himself with his 
 own principality of Meath.* Thus did Brien become 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A. D. 1000, 1001. O'Connor gives 
 credit to Malachy for resigning the crown voluntarily to Brien ; 
 but every circumstance connected with the whole transaction 
 proves the reverse. Set O^Caii. Dissert., pp. 244, 245. 
 
226 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 king of all Ireland, by an extraordinary revolution, with- 
 out any bloodshed or even the least civil commotion ; and 
 the following year he proceeded to Athlone and received 
 the submission of the kings and princes of Connaught and 
 Ulster, who acquiesced in the deposition of their former 
 monarch, whatever might have been their private feelings 
 concerning it. 
 
 This revolution, so unprecedented in all its circum- 
 stances, at least in Ireland, has given rise to vari- 
 ous conflicting opinions. Brien's accession to the throne 
 has been called an usurpation, by some ; and with the help 
 of supposed motives, the whole of his conduct has been 
 represented as the result of principles of the most selfish 
 and dishonourable description ; whilst by others his 
 assumption of the sovereignty has been lauded as the only 
 means of saving the country from that ruin to which it 
 appeared to be rapidly approaching. 
 
 It must be granted that the Heremonian family had, for 
 several ages previously, limited the right of succession to 
 themselves; but it is equally certain that the Irish 
 monarchy had been always elective ; and that from the 
 beginning no regard had been paid at any time to heredi- 
 tary right. Even the Heremonians themselves had 
 invariably pleaded this when any claim was made by the 
 Heberian branch upon account of its seniority. It may 
 also be remarked, that there is no proof that the motion 
 for deposing the reigning monarch came from the king of 
 Leath-Mogha, or that the latter proposed himself as the 
 person upon whom the imperial diadem was to be conferred- 
 He was then in the seventy-sixth year of his age, and it is 
 not likely that a crown of thorns, as that of Ireland was 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 227 
 
 at the time, could have many attractions for a man whose 
 attention ought to have been fixed rather upon one that 
 was incorruptible. The inference is therefore obvious, 
 that the provincial dynasts, and inferior toparchs, reflecting 
 on the melancholy and distressed condition of the nation 
 through the luxury and supineness of a nominal sovereign, 
 who sought his own happiness in a life of contemptible 
 oscitancy, without any regard for the welfare of his people, 
 first formed the resolution to depose him ; and for the 
 same reason this determination was seconded by the united 
 voice of the people. Resolved therefore to accomplish this 
 design, at all events, their application was made to Brien 
 to take the reins of government into his hands; and they 
 hoped by this means to obtain the same blessings for the 
 whole nation which that incomparable prince had procured 
 for his own subjects in the south of Ireland. Had the 
 latter led an indolent and inglorious life of pleasure, while 
 the common enemy was depopulating and laying waste his 
 country, he would never have been called to assume the 
 throne of monarchy ; and had Malachy continued the same 
 active zeal which characterized the earlier part of his 
 administration, he would never have been called upon to 
 relinquish his crown and dignity to one whose numerous 
 virtues pointed him out as worthy of them. The talented 
 Editor of " Lives of Illustrious and distinguished Irish- 
 men," who has taken an unfavourable view of Brien's 
 character,* at least in this transaction, should have recol- 
 lected, that had Malachy been that brave and vigilant 
 prince which his advocates assert him to have been, it would 
 
 * See Wills' Lives, p. 204. 
 
228 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 have been impossible that when his rival marched to Tara at 
 the head of a strong force, there should be " neither help for 
 the monarch in his weakness nor pity in his misfortunes." 
 The Irish nation was never so devoid of generosity 
 towards a deserving object, nor is there any thing in the 
 previous history of the king of Leath Mogha that would 
 justify the inference that he had ever suffered his ambition 
 to triumph over his love of strict justice and the welfare 
 of his subjects. Brien's conduct, in whatever light we 
 view it, will appear to be great, noble, and patriotic ; and 
 when his subsequent career is duly considered, it will be 
 found that he was influencd solely by a love of his country 
 in the part which he took upon this occasion. 
 
 Notwithstanding Brien's accession was followed by a 
 general acknowledgment of his authority throughout the 
 island, there were some petty princes in different places, 
 that opposed themselves to the general voice and refused to 
 acknowledge him as their lawful sovereign. The energy of 
 his j&rm and capacious mind, however, as well as the prom- 
 titude with which he was accustomed to act, gave them no 
 time to form themselves into confederacies, or to acquire any 
 strength in- that opposition which they were disposed to 
 give to his government. He despatched his son Morrogh, 
 with a body of the provincial troops of Munster and 
 Leinster, against some of the malcontents ; and he marched 
 himself at the head of a considerable force against others, 
 whom he soon reduced to obedience. In his progress, on 
 one of these occasions,* he visited Ai'magh, where Marinus, 
 the successor of St. Patrick, at the head of his clergy, 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A. 1004. 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 229 
 
 acknowledged his authority : and, it is said, that the mon- 
 arch having received the holy communion at the hands of 
 that prelate, left as an offering on the great altar of the 
 cathedral, a golden collar, weighing twenty ounces. 
 
 Having established himself in the quiet possession of 
 the throne, Brien's first care was to correct those disorders 
 which were then so generally prevalent throughout the 
 kingdom. The imbecility of several of his immediate 
 predecessors had consigned the strength of the monarchy to 
 a temporary annihilation ; and by the preposterous stupidity 
 of some of them, as well as by the want of firmness and 
 energy in others, the legislative power had been completely 
 unhinged, and the civil economy quite disconcerted. The 
 throne of Tara had been frequently occupied by monarchs 
 that may be seen to pass and repass in unsubstantial images 
 along the gallery of history without becoming, as they 
 ought to have done, the prime actors in those scenes either 
 of warfare or politics which involved so many consequences 
 that were most momentous to the nation. Disorders 
 therefore of a very disastrous nature were the result of this 
 state of things, and required a prudent and vigorous 
 policy in order that they might be so rectified as to restore 
 and perpetuate the public good. That he might therefore 
 accomplish his purpose with the greater facility, Brien 
 endeavoured to keep the different princes and chieftains in 
 temper, by confirming them in all their ancient privileges 
 and prerogatives, and by bestowing upon each of them 
 such presents and honours as were suitable to their 
 rank and dignity. He next summoned the clergy of 
 every order, and having restored them to their former 
 functions, he established on their old foundations those 
 
230 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 temporalities which had been alienated to other purposes 
 by the Danes. He recalled the exiled members of colle- 
 giate societies and restored them to their former employ- 
 ments and revenues. He repaired those literary edifices 
 which had been laid in ruins by the Danes, and erected 
 others in several places throughout the island, where it 
 appeared that such establishments were requisite. In 
 these schools were taught, in addition to theology, the libe- 
 ral sciences, together with the various branches of philoso- 
 phy and polite literature. He established pubHc libraries 
 for accommodation of such poor students as were unable to 
 provide books for themselves, and supported in their lite- 
 rary pusuits young men of genius and talent, whose limited 
 means were insufficient for that purpose. The most emi- 
 nent professors were procured for his academies: and 
 having thus applied a remedy to the decayed state of learn- 
 ing in his dominions, he had the satisfaction of witnessing 
 the salutary effect of the measures he had adopted. 
 
 In the reign of this monarch, it is said, that the 
 custom of giving certain surnames to families of distinction 
 began to be generally prevalent in Ireland. This usage had 
 been practised at a very early period in some particular cases 
 but it was chiefly confined to a very few families or to indi- 
 viduals who received a soiibriqaet from some personal pecu- 
 liarity. In this reign, however, it came into general use, 
 and every chief began to be called after some distinguished 
 ancestor, whose particular virtues were calculated to remind 
 him of his origin. Accordingly descendants of the present 
 monarch assumed from the name of O'Brien's.* The issue 
 
 * These titles were so highly esteemed in Ireland, that when 
 it was known to a certainty, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 231 
 
 of his brother Mahon were called MacMahon. The O'Neils 
 were so called from Niall the great ; and in the same man- 
 ner all the other families received their surnames. The 
 adjunct of 0', or Mac, which signified the son or descendant 
 of him whose name was given to the family, was prefixed to 
 the cognomen ; and the chief of each family was distin- 
 guished from its branches by preserving the surname only, 
 whilst to all the rest the Christian name was added. 
 
 The royal seat of Kincora, about a mile from Killaloe, 
 which had been so celebrated when Brien governed the 
 province of Munster, he ordered to be taken down, and 
 erected a more splendid one at a place some distance from 
 it, which is still known by the name of Bal-Boroihme. 
 
 As the Danes were a commercial people, and consequently 
 an advantage to the country, when disposed to live peace- 
 ably, such of them as were settled in the principal seaports 
 were suffered to remain unmolested, upon condition of giving 
 security for their allegiance and a large annual tribute 
 for the monarch's protection. All the rest of the foreigners 
 were expelled from the island ; and, having witnessed the 
 advantages these strangers had derived from their garrisons, 
 Brien made use of the latter for his own purposes, and erected 
 other fortifications wherever he judged them necessary. 
 And thus, by the wisdom, the justice, and the pious care 
 of this monarch, Ireland was restored to a state of peace, 
 
 that O'Brien had rejected his for the more degrading one of Earl 
 of Thomond, the chiefs of his own blood set fire to his noble 
 mansion at Cluanroad, near Ennis, and would have consumed 
 him in the flames, but for the timely interposition of MacClanchy 
 a chief justice of North Munster." O'HaUoran, Vol. III., p. 254. 
 
232 . HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 tranquility, and happiness to which she had hitherto been 
 a complete stranger.^ 
 
 A.B. 1013. But whilst the monarch was thus laying 
 plans for the welfare and prosperity of his people, a storm 
 was gathering, which, like the thunder awfully grumbling 
 in the distant clouds, soon burst forth with incredible fury 
 and menaced with destruction the best interests of the 
 country. Maolmurry, the king of Leinster, who had usurp- 
 ed the throne of that province in 999, having received some 
 insult, either real or supposed, at the court of the monarch, 
 marched into Meath at the head of a powerful army of 
 Lagenians and Danes, and laid waste the country, pillag- 
 ing the inhabitants and carrying off an immense booty. 
 Incensed by this unwarrantable outrage, Malachy, who still 
 retained the title of king of Meath, in retaliation, set fire 
 to the neighbouring district of Fingal, but having been met 
 by Maolmurry, accompanied by Sitric, king of Dublin, he 
 was defeated with considerable loss. Finding himself 
 unable, with his own forces, to resist the aggressions of his 
 enemies, Malachy was obliged to apply to Brein for assis- 
 tance against the Danes and Lagenians. The monarch, sen- 
 sible of the justice of his complaint, resolved to give him 
 the assistance he required ; and, having set out with his 
 forces, he laid waste Ossory on his way, and encamped at 
 Kilmainham, near Dublin, where he remained for almost 
 four months without being able to bring either the Danes 
 
 " * Equally vigilant to control disaflfection and turbulence, 
 and to coaciliate opinion — equally politic to select the means, 
 and powerful to enforce them — his reign was the most prosper- 
 ous for Ireland that her annals, with any seeming truth, 
 record." — Wills^ Lives^ see p. 205. 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 23B 
 
 or Lagenians to battle. In the meantime a large body of 
 Northmen entered the harbour of Cork, and, having sur- 
 prised the city, burned it to the ground, but before they 
 could regain their ships, the greater part of them fell in the 
 enterprise, together with the most valiant and distinguished 
 of their leaders. 
 
 A.D. 1014. The approach of winter having rendered it 
 necessary for the monarch and his forces to return to Mun- 
 ster, Maolmurry and his partisans, taking advantage of his 
 absence, used their utmost exertions to collect troops and 
 auxiliaries from every quarter, for the purpose of renewing 
 the war with more energy than ever. A great number, 
 therefore, of adventurers poured into the different parts in 
 Leinster, from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Normandy, Bri- 
 tain, the Orkneys, and every other northern settlement. 
 Maolmurry, in the meantime, was indefatigable, not only 
 in raising new levies, but in using every means in his 
 power to detach several of the native princes and chieftains 
 from the interests of their country. Never was there a 
 more energetic movement amongst the enemies of Ireland 
 than on this occasion ; and never was there a firmer deter- 
 mination on the part of the Irish to resist them with vigour 
 and intrepidity. t ' ^ 
 
 As an indication of his wish that none of his family or 
 name should survive the liberties of his country, the Irish 
 monarch was attended by his five sons, his grandson, 
 fifteen of his nephews, and the whole tribe of the Dalgais, 
 with all the chiefs of North Munster. The southern Momo- 
 nians were equally conspicuous in the cause of liberty, 
 not one prince absenting himself from the standard of his 
 sovereign. North Britain also sent forth her hardy chiefs, 
 p 
 
234 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 who, with their intrepid followers, swelled the ranks of the 
 Irish army and resolved to make common cause against 
 such enemies of the lives and liberties of mankind. 
 
 As Brien passed through Meath, he was joined by 
 Malachy and the forces of that principality. But revenge, 
 like some poisonous plant replete with baneful juices, still 
 rankled in the heart of the king of Meath. He had not 
 forgotten that Brietf had deprived him of the monarchy; 
 and perceiving that he had now an opportunity of gratify- 
 ing his revenge, which he preferred to the interests of his 
 country, he resolved to act the part of a traitor as soon as 
 the conflict should have commenced. In pursuance of this 
 resolution, it is said, he gave information to the king of 
 Leinster of some of the monarch's plans and proceedings, 
 and promised to desert with his followers on the day of 
 battle. This intelligence determined the enemy to attack 
 Brien before his son Donogh, whom he had sent to ravage 
 Leinster, should come up to his assistance. The Danes 
 and Lagenians formed themselves into three divisions ; 
 which being perceived by the monarch, he regulated the 
 disposition of his own troops accordingly. The first divi. 
 sion of the enemy consisted of the Danes of Dublin under 
 Dolat and Conmaol, and of one thousand Northmen, en- 
 cased in coats of mail, commanded by two Norwegian 
 princes, Carolus and Anrud. The second was composed 
 of the flower of Leinster, about nine thousand in number, 
 headed by Maolmurry, their king, together with a large 
 number of Danes. The third division was composed partly 
 of Northmen and partly of Britons, under the command 
 of Lodar, Earl of the Orkneys and Bruadair, admiral of 
 the fleet that had brought the auxiliaries to Ireland. This 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 235 
 
 arrangement, it was supposed, would excite a spirit of emu- 
 lation amongst the troops, by placing them under their 
 respective leaders. 
 
 The monarch was well aware of the formidable force 
 that he had now to encounter ; but dividing his army 
 likewise into three divisions, he was resolved to depend 
 upon " the God of battles " for the issue of this impor- 
 tant contest. His first division was under the command 
 of his son Morrogh, and Sitric, prince of Ulster ; and was 
 composed of his household troops, filled up with the prime 
 nobility of Munster. Malachy, with the forces of Meath, 
 was also in this division. The troops of Desmond and 
 South Munster, under their different chiefs, with those of 
 the Deasies, formed the central division, and were com- 
 manded by Cian and Donald, two princes of the Euge- 
 nian line. In the division composing the left wing, the 
 Conacians were placed under Teige O'Connor as chief 
 commander ; but as it did not form a line so extensive as 
 that of their antagonists, several detachments were added 
 to it, from different parts of Tipperary, Limerick, Clare, 
 and other places, commanded by their respective chief- 
 tains.* 
 
 The object of the foreigners, who might still be consi- 
 dered in their pagan state, was to crush for ever the power 
 of the Irish, and to become the absolute possessors of the 
 whole kingdom. Of this the monarch being convinced, he 
 perceived, when too late, his own imprudence in suffering 
 them to possess the principal seaports in his dominions 
 when he could have driven them entirely out of the coun- 
 
 • Annals of Innisfallen, at A.D, 1014. 
 
236 HISTORY or Ireland. 
 
 try : and lie was now resolved to strike that blow which 
 would render them unable to disturb the peace of his sub- 
 jects any more. Had the treacherous Irish allies of the 
 Danes possessed the same spirit of patriotism, this design 
 could have been easily accomplished ; but their unnatural 
 confederacy with these foreigners rendered the matter, in 
 the present instance, doubtful in the extreme. • 
 
 The insular levies under the command of Bruadair, who 
 had arrived in Dublin on Palm Sunday, insisted that 
 the battle should be fought on good Friday, to which 
 they knew that the Irish monarch would have a strong, 
 religious objection. It is said that Bruadair had been 
 informed by a pagan oracle, that should the battle 
 be fought on Friday, the victory would be certain to 
 the Danes ; * and it is probable that this was a strong 
 inducement to urge them to the contest upon that day. 
 Compelled therefore to take the field, even on Good Friday, 
 Brien rode through the ranks with a crucifix f in one 
 hand, and his drawn sword in the other ; and exhorted his 
 followers, as he passed along, to do their duty as soldiers 
 and Christians in the cause of their religion and their 
 country. He reminded them of what their ancestors had 
 suffered from these foreigners, and assured them that the 
 men they were now about to engage in battle were ready 
 to renew the same scenes of devastation and cruelty : " and^ 
 
 * Johnstone's Ant. Celto-Scand. Lanigan Chap. XXIII^ 
 i^ote 71. 
 
 t Since the days of Constantine this was the symbol chosen 
 by a Christian army in all their wars against pagans : whether 
 it was appropriate or not every reader must form an opinion for 
 himself. 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 237 
 
 by way of anticipation," said he, " they have fixed on the very 
 day on which Christ was crucified, to destroy the country of 
 his greatest votaries ; but that God, for whose cause you 
 are to fight this day, will be present with you, and deliver 
 his enemies into your hands." 
 
 The two armies met on the plains of Clontarf in all the 
 pomp of military array : whilst swords, battle axes, and 
 other instruments of human destruction, were exhibited 
 by the combatants in formidable magnificence. After 
 haranguing his troops, the monarch was proceeding to 
 lead them forward, but his great age induced the chiefs 
 of the army, with one consent, to request that he would 
 retire from the field, and leave the chief command to his 
 gallant son Morrogh. As soon as the conflict had com- 
 menced, Malachy with his followers, retired suddenly from 
 the scene of action and remained mere spectators, while 
 the rest of their countrymen were exposed to a far superior 
 number of enemies. This defection, however, though 
 treacherous and ungrateful, was far from dismaying the 
 undaunted forces of the Irish monarch. Like the moun- 
 tains that are not to be shaken by conflicting elements, 
 their intrepidity was not diminished by this exhibition of 
 meanness and deceit. Though Malachy's secession ren- 
 dered the division in which he had been placed far infe- 
 rior in numbers to that of the enemy with which they 
 were to engage, Morrogh, with great presence of mind, 
 cried out to his brave Dalcassians " that this was the time 
 to distinguish themselves, as they alone would have the 
 unrivalled glory of cutting off that formidable body of the 
 enemy." 
 
 Never was there greater intrepidity, perseverance, or 
 
238 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 skill displayed in any battle than in that of Clontarf. The 
 plains upon which this engagement took place admitted of 
 no ambuscades or other stratagems ; and the belligerents 
 on both sides fought man to man with a degree of courage 
 and dexterity almost unparalleled in the history of any 
 country. From sunrise till the evening nothing was heard 
 but the din of arms, the groans of the dying, and all the 
 heady tumult of ancient warfare. Morrogh and his gallant 
 associates flew from place to place, and left the sanguinary 
 traces of their courage and intrepidity wherever they came. 
 No quarters were given ; nor were they expected on either 
 side of the field. The tide of battle seemed to flow sometimes 
 towards the Danish and sometimes towards the Irish extre- 
 mity of the plains, as the one or the other party prevailed. 
 Such was the valour displayed on both sides, that the issue of 
 the day remained doubtful until near four o'clock in the 
 afternoon ; when the Irish, collecting all their energies and 
 roused into resistless fury, made a general attack with 
 such impetuosity upon the enemy, that the latter, whose 
 principal leaders had already fallen, began to give way on 
 every side. Their loss upon this occasion has been variously 
 estimated ; but certain it is, it must have been very consi- 
 derable. Those men that wore coats of mail, and that were 
 considered the flower of the Northmen, are said to have 
 been completely cut to pieces, together with their comman- 
 ders, Carolus and Anrud, as well as Dolat, and Conmaol 
 who commanded the Danes of Dublin. Amongst the slain, 
 were also the traitorous Maolmurry, the Scandinavian 
 admiral Bruadair, together with an incredible number of 
 native and foreign chieftains. But notwithstanding the 
 victory was decisive in favour of the Irish, it was dearly 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 239 
 
 purchased by the loss they sustained during the course of 
 the day. Besides a great number of Irish troops, the 
 monarch himself, his son Morrogh, and his grandson 
 Turlogh, together with several princes of Munster and 
 Connaught, were numbered with the slain. It is said that 
 Morrogh was treacherously stabbed by Anrud, one of the 
 Danish commanders, who was lying on the ground, and in 
 the act of being relieved by him. Amongst the various 
 and contradictory accounts that are given of his father's 
 death, perhaps the best is that which states, that Bruadair, 
 who had fled into a wood with a party of his followers, 
 happening to see the king in a retired spot attended by 
 only a few men, rushed upon him unawares and slew him 
 on the spot. 
 
 The following account of the monarch's death, extracted 
 from an ancient Irish manuscript, and translated by Mr. 
 O'Donovan, whether it be strictly correct in its details or 
 not, cannot fail to interest the reader : 
 
 " The confusion became general through the Danish 
 army, and they fled on every side. Laidin, the servant of 
 Bryan, observing the confusion, feared that the imperial 
 army was defeated, he hastily entered the tent of 
 Bryan, who was on his knees before a crucifix, and requested 
 that he would immediately take a horse and flee. " No," 
 says Bryan, " it was to conquer or die I came here ; but 
 do you and my other attendants take my horses to Armagh, 
 and communicate my will to the successor of St. Patrick : 
 that I bequeath my soul to God, my body to Armagh, 
 and my blessing to my son Donogh. Give two hundred 
 cows to Armagh along with my body ; and. go directly to 
 Swords of Columkille, and order them to come for my 
 
240 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 body to-morrow and conduct it to Duleek of St. Kiaran, 
 and let them convey it to Lowth ; whither let Maelmurry, 
 the son of Eochy Comharb, of St. Patrick, come with the 
 family of Armagh, and convey it to their cathedral." 
 " People are coming towards us," says the servant. " What 
 sort of people are they ?" says Bryan. " Green, naked 
 people," says the servant. '' They are the Danes in 
 armour," says Bryan ; and he rose from his pillow, seized 
 his sword, and stood to await the approach of Broder and 
 some of his followers : and he saw no part of him without 
 armour, except his eyes and his feet. Bryan raised his 
 hand, and gave him a blow, with which he cut off his left 
 leg from the knee, and the right from the ancle; but 
 Broder' s axe met the head of Bryan and fractured it. 
 Bryan, however, -with all the fury of a dying warrior 
 beheaded Broder, and killed a second Dane by whom he 
 was attacked, and then gave up the ghost." 
 
 At the battle of Clontarf, which was of such essential 
 moment to the Irish nation, this great and magnanimous 
 monarch died, in the eighty-eighth year of his age and the 
 thirteenth of his monarchy. Great men, who have rendered 
 signal services to their country, have sometimes left behind 
 them, in the characters they have created, a sort of 
 shadowy army which fights for their reputation, even if 
 there is scarcely a shred of it remaining ; but this was 
 not the case with Brien, whose character it is very difficult 
 to draw without seeming to be chargeable with giving it 
 too high a colouring. 
 
 In the early part of his life, which was spent in the tents 
 of strife and the territories of disorder, his inclination led 
 him to engage frequently in military exploits and the 
 
BRIEN BOROIHME. 241 
 
 exercises of the field ; but this predilection did not tend 
 to diminish his love of the arts and sciences. His taste 
 for literary pursuits increased with his years ; and the 
 endowments of his mind were almost incredible when the 
 disadvantages under which he constantly laboured are duly 
 considered. To the Church he was not only a bountiful 
 benefactor, but by his own pious and upright example, 
 ~ amidst all the inconvenience and turmoil of a military life, 
 he endeavoured to diffuse a spirit of piety and religion 
 throughout every grade in society. Urbane in his manners, 
 condescending in his deportment, and at all times easy of 
 access, he exhibited no inflexibility of character in any 
 thing except in the administration of justice. To the 
 clergy he was a powerful protector and patron, and gave 
 them every encouragement in the discharge of the sacred 
 duties of their office. As illustrious examples are the most 
 winning incitements to virtue, he effected, by his coun- 
 tenance and support of men of piety and letters, an exten- 
 sive change in the manners and dispositions of his people. 
 Dignified in his concessions, as well as in every act of 
 regal authority, he avoided the charge of meanness on the 
 one hand, and of severity on the other. The pleasantry 
 of his conversation in the hours of leisure and social 
 enjoyment, was equal to the courage and greatness of his 
 mind in the time of danger and alarm. 
 
 Nor were his bodily endowments inferior to those of his 
 great and enlightened soul, as at the age of fourscore years 
 he was able to undergo the rudest fatigues of war, and to 
 set an example to his troops of vigilance and intrepidity. 
 In short as a soldier, a statesman, a legislator, a Christian, 
 and a scholar, he had few equals and, perhaps, no superiors 
 among the princes of his day. England has been justly 
 
242 HISTORY. OF IRELAND. 
 
 proud of her Alfred, and Rome of some of her Caesars, but in 
 true magnanimity of character, inflexible love of justice, 
 chastened by experience, and an intimate knowledge of 
 mankind, a heroism almost romantic, which was ever 
 displayed in a righteous cause, and a profound veneration 
 for that Being by whom kings reign and princes decree 
 justice, be made the standard by which a monarch is to be 
 judged, the character of Brien Boru stands on an elevation 
 far above the level of any of his contemporaries. Other 
 princes may have adopted various methods of bribing the 
 vote of fame, or of purchasing a little posthumous renown, 
 but an uninterrupted series of splendid and glorious 
 actions is the legible inscription of this monarch, and his 
 ensuring, by his wise administration, the best interests of 
 his country is the plate that still continues to exhibit it to 
 posterity. 
 
 According to the directions of the dying monarch the 
 clergy of Swords, the day after the battle, took possession 
 of his body, for the purpose of forwarding it to Armagh. 
 Having brought it to their abbey, it was removed the next 
 morning to Duleek, and thence by the people of that place 
 to Louth, where it was met by the Bishop and clergy of 
 Armagh, who conveyed it to their own cathedral. The 
 body of Morrogh and the head of Conaing his cousin were 
 also carried with the remains of the king, that they might 
 be interred in the same place. The funeral obsequies were 
 celebrated with great pomp and magnificence ; and then 
 the body was deposited in a stone coffin at the north side 
 of the cathedral, while that of Morrogh and the head of 
 Conaing were placed at the south side. The other chieftains 
 who fell at the battle of Clontarf were interred at the 
 monastery of Kilmainham. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 Events Subsequent to the Death op Brien Boru. 
 
 As soon as the battle of Clontarf was concluded, Teige, 
 one of the sons of Brien Boru, withdrew with the rem- 
 nant of the Irish army to the camp at Kilmainham, and 
 was joined at that place on the following day by his bro- 
 ther Donogh. But scarcely had the Momonians, under 
 their respective leaders, proceeded about twenty miles on 
 their march towards their own country, before a dispute 
 arose between the Eugenian and Dalcassian princes about 
 their respective claims upon the provincial throne of Mun- 
 ster. 
 
 Desirous of regaining the sovereignty of their province, 
 the Eugenians, finding that the Dalgais had suffered so 
 much in the battle, and that their own force was now greatly 
 superior, thought this a proper opportunity to revive their 
 pretensions to the crown of Munster ; and accordingly Cian, 
 the son of Maolmuadh, sent a formal embassay on the second 
 morning of their march, to the. sons of Brien, inform- 
 ing them of his intention ; and not only requesting of 
 them the same support and assistance which he had afforded 
 to their father, but demanding submission from them as 
 their chief, and hostages for their future good behaviour. 
 He pleaded the disposal of the crown, according to the will 
 of their great ancestor, Olioll Olum, by alternate succession ; 
 but received a spirited and resolute answer from the two 
 princes, refusing to acknowledge liis claim ; and, as Cian 
 found himself, notwithstanding his supposed advantage, 
 
244 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 unable to support his pretensions, the former were suflfered 
 to march off quietly with the remnant of their intrepid and 
 patriotic band. 
 
 The contrast which the situation of these two princes 
 now formed with that in which they had stood but a few 
 days before, depicts most powerfully the fluctuating uncer- 
 tainty to which all terrestrial things are subject. Their 
 own public services, as well as those of their illustrious 
 father, were almost instantly forgotten ; and the men who 
 had heretofore been received with the plaudits of an 
 admiring multitude, and whose frown was dreaded by the 
 most powerful chieftains, were doomed to suffer, even on 
 their march from the plains of Clontarf, the most mortify- 
 ing trials, before they could reach the mansion of their 
 ancestors. As soon as they approached the borders of Ossory, 
 Fitzpatrick, the chief of that district, moved by hereditary 
 hostility towards the sons of Brien, with the most consum- 
 mate insolence and presumption, sent a messenger to them 
 requiring hostages for the good behaviour of their troops 
 as they marched through his territories. Had they ever 
 been his equals this might have been pardonable ; or had 
 they been reduced to their present distressed situation by 
 plundering and laying waste their country like so many 
 other princes of Ireland it might have been justifiable, but 
 under the existing circumstances it was neither the one nor 
 the other. In the meantime, Fitzpatrick had not only 
 assembled his own followers, but had collected a strong body 
 of auxiliaries from Leinster ; and was resolved to enforce 
 his demand, should the two princes refuse to comply with 
 the terms he proposed. 
 
 Incensed with rage and indignation at the insolence of 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF BRIEN. 245 
 
 this message, the sons of Brien expressed their astonish- 
 ment at the presumption of the prince of Ossory, to the 
 herald ; and said, that, notwithstanding their power was 
 now greatly diminished by their recent suflferings in the 
 cause of their country, they were still able with the rem- 
 nant of their troops, to punish a dastardly chief like him, 
 who meanly availed himself of the distressed position in 
 which they were placed. 
 
 Apprehensive of the consequences of a conflict, and 
 foreseeing that the destruction of this band of patriots was 
 inevitable, should a battle then ensue, the herald ventured 
 to remonstrate with the princes, and entreated them not to 
 send an answer to his master so ill adapted to their present 
 situation : but the intrepid Donogh, unaccustomed to 
 such language even from princes, was so enraged with the 
 presumption of the herald that he declared, if the law of 
 nations had not secured his person, he would order his 
 tongue to be cut out for his insolence, and commanded him 
 to repair immediately to his master with the answer he had 
 received.^ " At what period of time," said he, " did any 
 one of my ancestors do homage, or deliver hostages to an 
 Ossorian ? That the posterity of Eogan should sometimes 
 make such demands, is not surprising, being the issue of 
 the eldest son of our great ancestor ; but there never has 
 been an instance, except the present, in which the chief of 
 Ossory dared to demand hostages from the posterity of 
 Olioll Olum." 
 
 But the opposition of Fitzpatrick, which proceeded 
 solely from feelings of personal resentment, was paralyzed 
 
 * Warner, Vol. II. p. 218. 
 
246 msTORY OF Ireland. 
 
 by the subsequent conduct of his own followers. Moved 
 either by fear or sympathy, they absolutely refused to en- 
 counter the forces of North Munster in their present situ- 
 ation ; and the sons of Brien were suffered to proceed on 
 their march homewards without any further molestation. 
 With the usual fatuity, however, attendant upon the con- 
 duct of Irish chieftains towards each other, these two 
 princes quai-relled before the end of this memorable year, 
 a battle was fought between their respective followers, and 
 in the issue of the contest, Teige was victorious.^ 
 
 Meanwhile the sovereign throne having been left vacant, 
 by the death of Brien Boru, Malachy, the king of Meath, 
 notwithstanding the proofs he had given of his unfitness for 
 that dignity, had the address to get himself reinstated in 
 the monarchy.! About thirteen yeai*s before this event, 
 he had procured his own deposition, by his indolence and 
 inattention to the protection of his people : and, in no 
 instance, during that period, had he proved himself worthy 
 of public confidence. Forgetful of the allegiance which 
 he had professed to the sovereign who succeeded him, as 
 well as of the duty which he owed to his country, he had 
 basely and treacherously deserted his station at the battle 
 of Clontarf, and hazarded the public ruin for the gratifi- 
 cation of his own private jealousy and revenge. It is true 
 he conducted himself quietly, without making any attempt 
 to disturb the public peace, during the period of his depo- 
 sition ; but this was owing rather to the valour, good con- 
 
 ♦ Annals of Innisfallen, at A. D. 1014. 
 
 t Malachy's title, notwithstanding his assumption of the mon- 
 archy, was never acknowledged by the O'Brien's or by the people 
 of Munster.— la/jzga?}, Chap. XXIII, 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF BRIEN. 24? 
 
 duct, and great popularity of the reigning monarcli, than 
 to any meritorious disposition on his part. Such a char- 
 acter, therefore, could not have been an object of national 
 esteem ; and had not the circumstances of the country been 
 such as to prevent the states from pursuing their usual 
 course, he would not have laid hold on a crown so easily 
 which he had forfeited by his base and unworthy conduct. 
 Perceiving, however, no formidable rival in his way, and 
 being at the head of a body of troops that had suffered 
 nothing in the previous engagement, he succeeded in having 
 himself proclaimed monarch by his own immediate parti- 
 sans. 
 
 A. B. 1015. Whatever opinion may be formed of Mala- 
 chy's patriotism or principle, notwithstanding his defection 
 on the plains of Clontarf, he appears to have been by no 
 means friendly to those foreigners who had been so long 
 the oppressors of his countrymen. As soon therefore as 
 he found himself once more seated upon the throne in secu- 
 rity, he led an army, in conjunction with his Northern 
 ally, Hugh O'Neill, against such of the Danes of Dublin as 
 had survived the late battle ; plundered and burned almost 
 the whole city ; and by tliis means endeavoured to remove 
 at least part of that odium which still rested on his char- 
 acter. But in the following year these foreigners, under 
 the command of Sitric their king, took ample vengeance 
 for this visitation, by plundering and destroying the adja- 
 cent country, and putting all the inhabitants to the sword, 
 without any regard to age, sex, or condition.* 
 
 The frequent recurrence in the Irish annals of such 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A. D. 1015, 1016. 
 
248 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 entries as record the total extirpation of the Danes, and 
 their immediate appearance again in the work of desolation, 
 would naturally induce the reader to distrust the veracity 
 of the annalist, were he not to make a due allowance for 
 the hyperbolical mode of expression which the Irish chron- 
 iclers generally employed upon such occasions.* The 
 "total extirpation " of the foreigners signifies no more in 
 these records than the signal overthrow ; because their forces 
 were never so completely ruined as to prevent their rally- 
 ing again, and resuming their wonted course of plunder 
 and destruction. 
 
 A. D. 1018. The inhabitants of Leinster, who had 
 formerly joined in a confederacy against the liberties of 
 their country, were soon convinced that little confidence 
 could be reposed in the friendship of the ungTateful and 
 irreclaimable traitors that the Danes had always proved 
 themselves to be. Besides the usual depredations that 
 they were accustomed to commit in those parts of the prov- 
 ince which lay contiguous to Dublin, it is said that Sitric, 
 their king, upon some dispute, had the eyes of Bran, the 
 son "of Maolmurry, put out ;f and thus visited upon that 
 prince the treachery and baseness of which his father had 
 been guilty. The monarch also invaded the Lagenians, 
 
 ♦ " A figure of the Irish language, which, when translated, 
 has the appearance of violent misrepresentation, but is really no 
 more than the species of hyperbole, of which the modern appli- 
 cation of the word ' kilt ' is an example. The ' total extir- 
 pation " is used precisely in the same sense, and is to be under- 
 stood as no more or less than ' a good beating.' Wills^ Lives, 
 &c., p. 196. 
 
 t Ware's Ant,, Cap. XXIV. 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH 0^ BRIEN. 249 
 
 and chastised them for their refusal to submit to his author- 
 ity. The same line of conduct he pursued towards some 
 of the petty princes of Ulster, and by the terror of his 
 arms he caused himself to be feared, if not respected, 
 throughout all the provinces, except that of Munster. 
 
 A. D. 1022. Having sacrificed much that he might 
 regain the monarchy, Malachy, when it was too late, began 
 to blame himself for the course which he had hitherto 
 pursued. Being now far advanced in years, and feeling the 
 infirmities of old age coming rapidly upon him, he became 
 sensible of his inability to discharge the duties connected 
 with the important station which he now filled. The fac- 
 tions and intestine broils which continued to prevail were 
 too much for his declining years. He therefore commenced 
 the dedication of his remaining days to works of piety 
 and public utility. He rebuilt and repaired several 
 churches and monasteries which had fallen into decay : and 
 made provision, in the different seminaries of learning 
 throughout the kingdom, for the maintenance and educa- 
 tion of three hundred poor students. After a second 
 reign of eight years, he departed this life, in the seventy- 
 second year of his age, without being much regretted — 
 except by his own immediate followers. 
 
 "With Malachy the Second ended the government of the 
 Hy-Niall race;* and the confusion which ensued, has- 
 tened the dissolution of the monarchy itself. For, notwith- 
 standing some of the provincial kings assumed the supreme 
 title, and exercised the power connected with it amongst 
 their respective parties, they were not monarchs of Ireland 
 
 ♦ O'Conor's Dissert., p. 251. 
 Q 
 
250 .HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 in the true and legitimate sense of the word.* Nor was 
 there any prince after Malachy, for many years, who even 
 claimed the sovereignty of the whole island. When this 
 dignity was restricted to the alternate succession of the 
 Clan-Colman and Tyrone houses, it was intended thereby 
 to lessen the number of competitors for the crown, as well 
 as to repress, in the several provinces, the insolence and 
 domineering spirit of the aristocracy. But this end was 
 not fully answered, at least to the extent that was antici- 
 pated by its projectors. The monarchy was rendered for 
 some time, indeed, more respectable by such a restriction ; 
 but no addition was thereby made to the power of the 
 crown. So one centre of union was wanted, round which 
 the different contending parties, into which the kingdom 
 was so unhappily divided, might occasionally rally ; but so 
 limited was the power which the monarch really possessed, 
 that the sovereign throne proved but a feeble cement to 
 the heterogeneous materials of which the nation was com- 
 
 In this state of things it is not very surprising that a 
 foreign enemy, like the Danes, accustomed ^to rapine and 
 scenes of desolation, should take advantage of the divisions 
 and factious feuds of the Irish people, and succeed so far 
 as to make formidable settlements upon the sea-coast, and 
 even to penetrate into the heart of the country. From the 
 
 * Those princes, who assumed the title of monarch without a 
 due election were " stigmatized by our Senachies as Righ, go 
 Freasahhra, or kings by force and violence, in opposition to 
 those who were legally elected, and whom they called Luin Righ, 
 or kings in the complete sense of the word." O^Hal. ut supra, 
 Chap. II. 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF BRIEN. 251 
 
 different engagements between the natives and the North- 
 men, it is easy to perceive, that it was not for want of cour- 
 age the Irish were so frequently subdued : for had they 
 only cultivated union amongst themselves, they could 
 easily have expelled these freebooters from their coasts. 
 But a spirit of discord, like a sullen and malignant cloud 
 which refuses to depart, but envelopes the face of the 
 country, and intercepts the prospect, still continued to ope- 
 rate upon the conflicting elements of which the nation was 
 composed, and the foreigners gained ground rather by ally- 
 ing themselves with oppressed and oppressing chieftains, 
 and by taking advantage of the various disputes that from 
 time to time occurred between the native princes, than by 
 any superior courage or abilities which they displayed in 
 the field The provincial kings became every day more 
 independent of the supreme authority, and even set up their 
 own assemblies in opposition to the national Aonach, or 
 meeting of the states of Tara ;* and thus, by the seductions 
 of fraud, or the assaults of violence, they became formidable 
 rivals of the monarchs themselves. 
 
 The intercourse and alliances of the Northmen with the 
 French and English, as well as with the inhabitants of Ire- 
 land itself, during the course of more than a century, had 
 tended in some measure to soften their manners and to pro- 
 mote their civilization ; whilst their conversion to the 
 Christian religion, though it had not altogether eradicated 
 their disposition for plunder and oppression, had an exten- 
 sive influence in improving their morals and correcting 
 their former habits of vice and depravity. But whilst 
 
 * O'Oon. Dissert., p. 253. 
 
252 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the Danish settlers were benefitted by their residence in 
 Ireland, their communication for so long a time with the 
 natives tended considerably to render the latter both vicious 
 and corrupt. Their example, like the pestilence which 
 scatters ten thousand poisons from its baneful wings, had 
 tainted the morals and infected the principles of the people 
 with whom they associated. The extinction of public and 
 private virtue was the consequence of that ignorance and 
 barbarism which they had introduced ; and, notwithstanding 
 Ireland could still boast of her literai'y luminaries, it is 
 obvious that learning began to decline throughout the 
 country. 
 
 Through occasional alliances with these foreigners, the 
 provincial kings frequently increased their own power, 
 whilst that of the monarch was diminished in proportion : 
 but notwithstanding all these confederacies and alliances 
 with the domestic malcontents, the Northmen still con- 
 tinued a distinct and hostile people. Constantly recruited 
 from the barren and frozen regions of Scandinavia, they 
 were able to keep the Irish monarchs perpetually in the 
 field and the natives in an unceasing ferment. In the begin- 
 ning of the reign of Malachy the Second, this monarch had 
 acted with energy and spirit in giving them opposition : but 
 it was reserved for Brien Boru to crush their power efiectual- 
 ly, and to emancipate his countrymen, though he sacrificed his 
 own life in that patriotic enterprise. But notwithstanding 
 Brien's accession to the sovereign throne proved ruinous 
 to the foreign oppressors of his country, it became perhaps 
 more so to his own subjects. The destruction of the 
 monarchy may be justly dated from that revolution which 
 opened to the provincial kings a way to the highest station 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF BRIEN. 253 
 
 of authority and dignity in the kingdom, and awakened 
 pretensions which had lain dormant for so many ages. 
 And when the coercive energy of that mighty mind which 
 had, for a time, confined the impetuous courses of refrac- 
 tory chieftains within certain limits ceased to operate, 
 division and usurpation, like a destructive cancer, fastened 
 their envenomed teeth in the vitals of the constitution, 
 and the malignant influence was felt from the centre to 
 the circumference of the whole island. 
 
 On the death of Malachy, as a revolution had been 
 already effected, no prince appeared to have stronger claims 
 to the throne of Ireland than the sons of Brien Boru. 
 The signal services rendered to the nation by their illus- 
 trious father, the part which they had taken themselves in 
 humbling the oppressive enemies of their country, and 
 their own magnanimity and courage, all united to give their 
 pretensions more than ordinary weight. But the unnatural 
 jealousies and dissensions which prevailed between them 
 deprived the nation of this advantage : and the people were 
 doomed to experience all the miseries and calamities of 
 those civil wars which ensued about the succession to the 
 monarchy. 
 
 A. D. 1023. The two princes who had acted so nobly in 
 the cause of their country, and who had escaped from the 
 carnage of the plains of Clontarf, had immediately after their 
 return home, as we have seen, turned their arms against each 
 other ; and, though they afterwards united against a common 
 enemy, and seemed to be mutually reconciled, the reconcilia- 
 tion of such indomitable spirits was like the turbulent and 
 outrageous tempest, which sometimes seems to be assuaged, 
 but only intermits its fury for the purpose of increasing 
 
254 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 its strength and future impetuosity. Perceiving that whilst 
 his elder brother Teige lived, he could only fill a secondary 
 station, Donogli contrived to efiect that by treachery which 
 he was unable to accomplish in any other way. He there- 
 fore sent for the chief of Ely, and, by specious promises, 
 as well as by large presents, prevailed upon him to surprise 
 his brother the following night, and to carry him off pris- 
 oner to Ormond, where he was treacherously murdered a 
 short time after by the people of that country.* 
 
 Alarmed at the rising power of the Heberians, and at 
 the same time unable to agree among themselves about a 
 successor, the Clan Colman suffered the principality of 
 Meath, with some of the adjoining districts, on the death 
 of Malachy, to fall under the administration of Cuan 
 O'Lochain, arch-poet and chief antiquary of Ireland ; and 
 after him to be governed by a clergyman named Corcoran, f 
 for what reason it is now very difficult to conjecture. The 
 power, however, of each of these incumbents lasted but a 
 short time ; as the former was killed by the people of 
 Leinster in the second year of his administration ; and the 
 latter is said to have become an anachoret, and to have 
 died at Lismore some years after. 
 
 A. D. 1026. Meanwhile Donogh O'Brien began to make 
 some show of royalty, and to assume the regal title, as 
 soon as his elder brother was taken out of his way. Of 
 the southern half of Ireland he was recognized as the 
 sovereign ; J and the following year, at the head of a 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A.D. 1023. 
 t See Lan. Eccles. Hist., Chap. XXIII. 
 t Annals of Innisfallen, at A. D. 1026. 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF BRIEN. 255 
 
 numerous force, he invaded Meath, where he received hos- 
 tages from the Clan Colman. He next proceeded to Dublin, 
 and not only received the homage and submission of the 
 citizens, but raised large contributions in that city. From 
 Dublin he returned through Leinster to Kincora, compel- 
 ling the Lagenians and Ossorians, in his way, to pay him 
 tribute, and to give him securities for their future peace- 
 able demeanour.* He next entered Connaught, and re- 
 ceived from the Conacians the homage and tribute usually 
 paid to the monarchs of Ireland. But whilst he was able to 
 exhibit, not only in the two Munsters, but also in Leinster, 
 Connaught, and Meath, the ensigns of sovereignty, and to 
 assume the title of monarch, a powerful league was being 
 formed against him, which ultimately proved too strong to 
 be overcome either by his abilities or address. 
 
 Turlogh O'Brien, the son of Teige, soon after the mur- 
 der of his father, had fled from Munster to Fearkall, the 
 residence of his near relative, Dermod Mac Malnambo, 
 where he was received with much kindness and cordiality. 
 This prince, whose territories embraced the district which 
 is now known by the name of the King's County, formed 
 a strong party in favour of his kinsman ; and, in oppo- 
 sition to Donogh, his exiled nephew assumed the title of 
 monarch of Ireland, and was acknowledged as such by his 
 own partisans and friends. In addition to this mortifica- 
 tion, which of itself would have been sufficient to wound 
 the ambitious and treacherous fratricide to the heart, the 
 Lagenians, whose territories he had so recently entered in 
 the character of monarch, collected all their forces, and by 
 
 * O'Hal., Book XII., Chap, II. 
 
256 histohy of Ireland* 
 
 the way of reprisal, carried hostilities into the province 
 of Munster ; plundered, sacked, and burned the city of 
 Waterford, and brought away with them a great number 
 of cattle, as well as many prisoners that they had taken in 
 the conflict.* 
 
 To enter into a detail of the proceedings of these two 
 rival monarchs, and of their respective parties, would be 
 quite unnecessary for any purpose of historical importance. 
 For many years Ireland was a scene of outrage and 
 violence committed by both parties according as the scale 
 turned in their favour. In A. D. 1054, at the head 
 of an army supplied by the kings of Connaught and 
 Leinster, Turlogh invaded Munster and gained many 
 advantages over his uncle : but Donogh did not fail to 
 retaliate whenever an opportunity presented itself. In 
 order to lessen the number of his enemies, he agreed in A. D. 
 1058, to exonerate the people of Connaught from the 
 claims which he had made upon them, provided they would 
 withdraw their forces from the assistance of his competitor ; 
 and two years after, he made a similar concession to the 
 Lagenians. But Turlogh's influence had become too strong 
 to be injured or impeded by the defection of these provin- 
 cialists. At length Donogh made one effort more to expel 
 his nephew from the province. He collected all his forces, 
 and, at the foot of Ardagh mountain, met the army of- his 
 antagonist, but received a complete overthrow in that 
 engagement. By these repeated defeats, his kingdom was 
 gradually reduced to the province of Munster, and even 
 that also he lost in the following year, A. D. 1064 : for 
 
 * Warner, Vol. II, p. 230. 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF BRIEN. 25? 
 
 the Momonians had sufifered so much ia their unnatural 
 contests, that they deserted his standard, and gave hostages 
 to the other monarch for their future loyalty and allegiance 
 to him. 
 
 Nothing is so effectual as conscious rectitude to inspire 
 a dignity of mind superior to transitory events, or to 
 create a calmness of temper unappalled by even death 
 itself; but of this consolation Donogh had already deprived 
 himself. Oppressed by the numerous misfortunes he had 
 experienced in his declining years, and tormented by his 
 own conscience for the injuries he had done to his nephew, 
 as well as for the murder of his brother, his only hopes 
 were placed in some extra-national power to restore him to 
 that authority of which both his friends and his enemies 
 had deprived him. In this state of his affairs he made a 
 journey to Rome, and, it is said, carried the crown of Ire- 
 land with him, which he laid at the feet of Alexander II., 
 the reigning pontiff ; but, finding that he could obtain no 
 help from that quarter, he renounced the world, took upon 
 him the habit of a monk, and died in the monastery of 
 St. Stephen, a short time after, in the eighty-eighth year of 
 his age.* 
 
 This donation of the crown of Ireland to the pope has 
 been supposed, by some, to render valid the grant that was 
 afterwards made of the sovereignty of the island by that 
 prelate to Henry the Second of England. " But," as Mr. 
 O'Halloran observes, " admitting that he surrendered his 
 crown to the see of Rome, it is evident it could not be the 
 imperial crown, because he was neither elected nor crowned 
 
 * Annals of lunisfallen, at A. D. 1064. 
 
258 HISTORY OF IRELANl). 
 
 monarch. It could not be the crown of Leath-Mogha, as 
 from unerring records it appears, that he peaceably surren- 
 dered that to his nephew. But let us for once suppose, 
 what was not the case, namely, that Donogh made a 
 formal tender of the crown of Ireland to the pope ; could the 
 latter, or his successors, from this donation, found any claim 
 whatever to the sovereignty of Ireland ? Could an exile, 
 an usurper, as Donogh undoubtedly was, transfer to any other 
 a power which he had already surrendered to the legal 
 proprietor ? But, for argument's sake, let us admit him to 
 be acknowledged as monarch in the fullest sense of the 
 word ; and that, in this character, he made a formal sur- 
 render of his crown and dignity to this pope, or to any 
 other province ; still, by the laws of Ireland, the moment 
 of his death put a period to his delegation."* 
 
 This reasoning is conclusive, and, upon what ground 
 soever the Roman pontiflF might have granted Ireland to 
 the English monarch, the conduct of such a prince as 
 Donogh O'Brien could have given him no colour of pre- 
 tence for claiming such a power. 
 
 If the most powerful prince in those times of anarchy 
 and confusion, when the constitution of the country was so 
 flagrantly violated, might be considered as the reigning 
 monarch, Dermod, the king of Leinster, had an undoubted 
 claim to that title upon the abdication of Donogh. This 
 dignity, however, is not conceded to him, and Turlogh, 
 though never elected to the monarchy in due form, assumed 
 the sovereign power, as soon as his uncle had quitted 
 the kingdom. It is true, Mortogh, the son of Donogh, a 
 
 * O'Hal., ut supra. 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF BRIEN. 259 
 
 very valiant prince, made an unsuccessful attempt to dis- 
 pute the crown of Munster with him ; but Turlogh, with 
 the assistance of his kinsman and ally, the Lagenian king, 
 soon crushed this rebellious movement, received hostages 
 from the Momonians, chased Mortogh into Connaught, and, 
 for giving him shelter, reduced the king of that province 
 to the necessity of purchasing a precarious peace at his 
 own pleasure and that of his Lagenian ally. But the 
 latter having, in the beginning of February, A. D. 1072, 
 entered Meath in a hostile manner, which he had wasted 
 several times before with great cruelty, he was defeated by 
 Connor, the prince of that territory ; and, in the bloody 
 battle of Odhba; he fell a victim to his own temerity, as 
 he was numbered amongst the slain.* 
 
 Being now left without a rival, Turlogh's first public 
 act was to march into Ossory, Hy-Kinselagh, and other 
 parts of Leinster, and to receive hostages from the differ- 
 ent princes and chieftains of that province. His army 
 halted at Kilmainham ; and there Gothric, or Godfrey, the 
 Danish king waited on him and acknowledged himself 
 as his vassal. After this he entered the city, the gates 
 having been thrown open, and was received in form by the 
 magistrates and citizens as their sovereign. Some time 
 after he marched into Connaught, where he received homage 
 and hostages from O'Conor the king of that province, 
 from O'Rourk, prince of Breffny, from O'Beilly, 0' Kelly, 
 Mac Dermod, and several other princes and chieftains. 
 Thence he proceeded to Ulster, but met with an effectual 
 repulse from the Ultonians. But finding that the Danish 
 
 * Annals of Innisfallen, at A.D. 1072. 
 
260 HIST'ORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 chieftain at Dublin, notwithstanding the readiness with 
 which he had previously made a profession of his allegiance, 
 had given the king of Ulster intelligence of his designs, 
 and had even afforded the latter some private assistance, he 
 banished Godfrey on his return, and appointed his own son, 
 Mortogh, governor of Dublin and of the territory of Fingal 
 in his stead. ^ 
 
 Encouraged by the failure of Turlogh's attempt upon 
 the Ultonians, and wishing to assert their own indepen- 
 dence, the people of Connaught were preparing to shake 
 off the yoke ; but having made a sudden descent upon 
 that province, he surprised their king, seized upon his 
 person, and obliged him to give fresh Hostages for his 
 future peaceable behaviour, before he would release him 
 from his captivity. He next subdued the people of Uladh, 
 and reinstated Dunlevy, their king, in his dominions, from 
 which he had been expelled ; and in the year 1082, that 
 prince waited on him at his palace in Limerick, with his 
 principal nobility, to thank him, and to do him homage as 
 his chief : so that Turlogh continued gradually to add to 
 his preponderance over different parts of the kingdom, 
 until he might at length be styled truly monarch of all 
 Ireland, though never elected to that dignityf . 
 
 But no degree of success or of worldly prosperity can 
 ward off the stroke of death, or postpone the time of that 
 event when the final summons has once arrived. This 
 monarch had long been labouring under a chronic disorder, 
 which at length deprived him of his life at Kincora, A. D. 
 
 ♦ O'Hal., ut supra, Chap. III. 
 
 t Annals of Innisfallen, at A.D. 1073-1088. 
 
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OP BRIEN. 261 
 
 1086, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, and the twenty- 
 second of his reign.* 
 
 The character of Turlogh O'Brien stands high in the 
 pages of history for justice, humanity, and generosity. 
 These principles, however, which were undoubtedly asso- 
 ciated in his mind, and which shed a lustre upon his 
 actions in general, were sometimes sunk into a phase of 
 obscurity, by the unhappy circumstances in which he 
 was placed. The turbulence of the times, as well as the 
 refractory disposition of the provincial dynasts and other 
 princes, obliged him sometimes to resort to measures of 
 seeming severity : but he never employed his power for 
 the purpose of oppressing any of his people, or of depriving 
 those princes under him of their legitimate or hereditary 
 rights. He appears to have imitated the example of his 
 grandfather, Brien Boru, as far as the distraction of the 
 times would permit, in the establishment of good laws, 
 the punishment of those who transgressed them, and in 
 the protection and reward of merit, wherever it was to be 
 found.f In a letter which he received from Lanfranc, 
 the archbishop of Canterbury, that prelate says : " That 
 God has bestowed his blessing upon the kingdom of 
 Ireland, when he raised your excellency to the regal 
 dignity of that kingdom, is evident to every considering 
 person : our brother and fellow-bishop Patrick | has related 
 
 * Ibid., at A. D.1086. 
 
 t Warner, Vol. II., p. 233. 
 
 t Patrick was the second bishop of the Danes of Dublin 
 after their conversion to Christianity. He had been consecrated 
 by this Norman Archbishop of Canterbury himself. 
 
262 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 so many great and good things concerning the pious 
 humility of your grandeur towards the good, strict severity 
 against the bad, and your most discreet equity with regard 
 to every description of persons, that, although we have 
 never seen you, yet we love you as if we had, and wish to 
 consult your interest, and to render you our most sincere 
 service, as if we had seen you and intimately known you."=*= 
 In this letter, which was obviously designed to enlist the 
 power and influence of the Irish monarch in bringing over 
 the church in his dominions to a state of subjection to the 
 see of Rome, as well as in forwarding his plans for establish- 
 ing his own authority over the Irish bishops, Lanfranc 
 styles him, " the magnificent king of Ireland," and uses 
 such flattering expressions as would lead to a strong sus- 
 picion of the sincerity of his feelings. However, as the 
 character which he has given of this prince corresponds 
 with his general conduct, we need not be surprised at the 
 eulogies thus passed upon his administration. Had he not 
 possessed a large share of wisdom and discretion, as well as 
 a noble and generous nature, he could never have governed 
 a people, free even to licentiousness, with popularity and 
 approbation, at a time when the nation was rent asunder 
 by faction, his own title called in question by the greater 
 part of the people, and his enemies both powerful and 
 influential. 
 
 * Usser. Syllog. Epist. Hib., Ep. xxvii. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Irish Monarchy Anterior to the Ascension 
 of roderic o'conor. 
 
 The death of Turlogh O'Brien proved another signal 
 for faction to raise its head over the Irish nation. The 
 monarchy had now become a mere name, without either 
 vitality or prestige. The people were, therefore, accustomed 
 for some time, to look upon this royal figment as upon an 
 old banner over a tomb, in which all the muscular machin- 
 ery of a strong man is passing into dust. The constitution 
 was totally disregarded ; the estates were not called togeth- 
 er, nor had any regular election of a monarch taken place 
 since the death of Brien Boru. Malachy had been restored 
 to the throne by his own partisans in Meath, without any 
 appeal to the constitutional electors ; and Donogh, smitten 
 by his own conscience, dared not appear as a candidate 
 before a national assembly. In consequence of this state 
 of afi"airs, every feudatory prince formed an independent 
 interest, and felt unwilling to be eclipsed by another : 
 so that the historians of this time have been obliged to con- 
 sider the prince of the greatest power, as the nominal mon- 
 arch of the country. 
 
 Immediately after the death of Turlogh, his son Mor- 
 togh* was proclaimed king of Leath-Mogha, and is ranked 
 
 * " Turlogh had four sons ; Teige, who died soon after his 
 father, at Cin-Corradh, Mortogh, who was his immediate suc- 
 cessor ; Dermod, who succeeded Murtogh ; and Donogh, slain in 
 Meath." 
 
264 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 next among the monarchs of Ireland. But he had a power- 
 ful rival in Donald O'Lochluin, who was also a candidate 
 for the sovereign throne ; and the rival claims of these two 
 princes soon embroiled the country in a civil war, the 
 former putting forward his pretensions under the sanction of 
 the new order of things, which had introduced the provin- 
 cial kings in the person of his great ancestor, Brien Boru ; 
 and the latter claiming a long prescriptive right of succes- 
 sion for many ages, in the royal Hy-Niall family, of which 
 he was now the head. 
 
 To insure his power, as soon as his father was dead, 
 Mortogh, having first banished his brother Dermod, led an 
 army into Leinster, to receive the homage and acknow- 
 ledgments of the Lagenians. Gothric, the former Danish 
 king of Dublin, in whose stead Mortogh had been appointed 
 by his father, had resumed the command of the city in 
 his absence ; but having been made acquainted with his 
 approach, Gothric again fled from the country, and Mor- 
 togh appointed his eldest son, Donald, to the ofl&ce of gov- 
 ernor of that city. 
 
 Encouraged by this acquisition of the sovereignty of 
 Leinster and Meath, Mortogh next carried his hostilities 
 into Ulster, and compelled the petty chiefs of that province 
 to pay him tribute. But Donald, prince of Tyrconnel^ 
 embraced this opportunity of causing a diversion in MiTn- 
 ster ; and at the invitation of Dermod, the exiled brother 
 of the monarch, proceeded through Connaught with his 
 army into the southern province, burned the palace of 
 Kincora,^ the city of Limerick, and several other towns ; 
 
 ♦ la the course of the war, when Mortogh entered Ulster, he 
 retaliated by causing the palace of Aileach to be razed to its 
 foundation. Wills^ Lives, &c., p. 241. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEFORE RODERIC. 265 
 
 and, with a number of prisoners, and the spoils of the 
 Momonians, returned to his own dominions in the north. 
 
 To pursue these princes through all their various attacks 
 and reprisals would be unnecessary : suffice it to say, that, 
 for more than twenty years, they carried on a destructive 
 contest, and the public interest was sacrificed to their wild 
 ambition. The one generally possessed the sovereign com- 
 mand of the northern, and the other of the southern half of 
 the kingdom ; and in the protracted conflict which they 
 carried on, sometimes the one, and sometimes the other 
 party prevailed. Each of them being intent upon the object 
 of his own ambition, they had many furious contests in the 
 field ; and many others were prevented by the intervention 
 of the clergy, who endeavoured frequently, though some- 
 times in vain, to reconcile their jarring interests.* Every 
 year, almost, produced the same series of ravages and plun- 
 der, the same bloody contests, and the same devastation of 
 difierent parts of the country ; and that which casts a deeper 
 shade of gloom upon the aspect of these wars, is, that they 
 were generally carried on against the property of the inno- 
 cent and unoffending. By destroying commercial security, 
 they struck off the wheels of business, and cut asunder the 
 sinews of industry. There could be little encouragement, 
 under such circumstances, to cultivate any portion of the 
 ground, or to take pleasure in improvements of any descrip- 
 tion, when everything lay at the mercy of lawless power ; 
 whilst tyranny, like a ravenous harpy, was ready to snatch 
 the cup from the lips of industry, or wrest it, by violence, 
 from the hand of liberty. 
 
 O'Conor's Dissert., p. 255, 
 R 
 
266 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 In the dreadful struggle between these two princes, they 
 were sometimes in turn reduced, by each other, to the very 
 brink of ruin ; and again they compounded their differ- 
 ences, and seemed to part good friends. But their amity 
 was neither lasting nor sincere. In the year 1099, Mor- 
 togh invaded Ulster with all the forces he was able to 
 command ; and was met on the plains of Muirtheimne, in 
 the county of Down, by Donald, with the whole power of 
 Ulster ; but when the two armies were just about to engage 
 in a dreadful contest, the bishops of Armagh and Cashel, 
 with several other eminent ecclesiastics, threw themselves 
 between them, and, through their intervention, the two 
 parties were restored to peace. The result of this recon- 
 ciliation was, that Donald was acknowledged as king of 
 Leath-Cuin, and Mortogh, as king of Leath-Mogha ; but 
 it is probable that the latter reserved to himself the nom- 
 inal title of Afd-Righ, or monarch of Ireland.* 
 
 By the wisdom and bravery which Mortogh had always 
 evinced, his fame spread throughout the neighbouring 
 states ; and a short time after the consecration of Anselm 
 to the archbishopric of Canterbury, he addressed a letter, 
 "To Mortogh, the magnificent king of Ireland," in which 
 he compliments him very highly for his prudence, fortitude 
 and justice.f Some time after this, according to the chron- ' 
 icles of the Isle of Man, Lagman, the king of that island, 
 after abdicating the thi'one, having gone on a pilgrimage 
 to Jerusalem, and his brother Olave being a minor, the 
 nobility of the island despatched ambassadors to Mortogh, 
 
 * O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 297. 
 
 t Usser. Syllog. Epist. Hib., Ep. XXXVI. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEFORE RODERIC. 267 
 
 requesting him to send them some diligent man of royal 
 extraction, to rule oyer them during the minority of the 
 young prince. In compliance with this request, the mon- 
 arch sent Donald, the son of Teige, enjoining him to gov- 
 ern the kingdom with clemency and justice. But as soon 
 as he was seated on the throne, he began to act the part of 
 a tyrant, and behaved with so much cruelty and outrage, 
 that the inhabitants, unable to endure his oppression, con- 
 spired against him, rose up in arms, and obliged him to fly, 
 for safety, to his own country.* 
 
 It has also been asserted, upon the same authority, that 
 Magnus, king of Norway, amongst other conquests, had 
 subjugated the Isle of Man, sent his shoes to Mortogh, 
 commanding him to carry them on his shoulders through 
 the middle of his house, on Christmas day, in the presence 
 of his messengers, as a mark of subjection and vassalage : 
 that, though the Irish received this command with the 
 greatest indignation, the monarch' himself, conscious of his 
 own weakness, meanly replied, that he would not only 
 carry the shoes, but even eat them, rather than to provoke 
 Magnus to destroy one province of Ireland : that he accord- 
 ingly complied with the mandate, treated the messengers 
 with great respect, and sent them back with presents for 
 their master.f 
 
 The incredibility of these circumstances, detailed by the 
 Manks Chroniclers, and the conduct imputed to the Irish 
 monarch, being at such variance with Mortogh's character 
 on every other occasion, the whole account has been reck- 
 
 * Camb. Brit, from the Chronicon Mannice. 
 t Wood's Account of the Isle of Man, p. 341. 
 
268 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 oned as a mere fabrication, unworthy of notice in the his- 
 tory of this period.* The truth, however, is, that Magnus 
 did send such a message to the king of Ireland ; but the 
 details of the account seem to have been but imperfectly 
 known by either the chroniclers of Man or the writers of 
 Irish history. Mortogh's daughter had been married to 
 Sigurd, a Norwegian prince, and her father had entered 
 into a certain agreement with Magnus upon that occasion ; 
 but the impression which the terms of this treaty had made 
 on the mind of the Irish monarch, was only as the trace of 
 an arrow through the penetrated air, or the path of a keel 
 in the furrowed wave. With the accustomed faithlessness of 
 that period, he had violated his engagement, and Magnus was 
 resolved to make a descent upon his dominions, in order to 
 indemnify himself and his son. He had already been suc- 
 cessful, not only in the conquest of the Island of Man itself, 
 but of the Orcades, the Hebrides, and the island of Angle- 
 sea :f and he hoped, from the divided and distracted state 
 of the Irish people, to be equally so in his attempt upon them 
 also. His message was, therefore, designed to be merely a 
 challenge to the Irish monarch, as he could not have expected 
 that Mortogh would comply with it. But instead of receiv- 
 ing his messengers with respect, as has been asserted, that 
 monarch ordered their ears to be cut off, in the presence of 
 his court, and desired them to inform their master, that 
 this was the only answer he would return to his insolent 
 demand.! 
 
 * See Warn., Vol XL, p. 238. 
 
 t Wood, ut supra, pp. 340, 341. 
 
 \ Bruodin Chronicle, quoted by O'Halloran, 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEFORE RODERIC. 269 
 
 A. D. 1101. Not only incensed with the manner in 
 which his messengers had been treated, but learning, upon 
 inquiry, so much of the salubrity of the climate, the fer- 
 tility of the soil, and the beauty of the country, Magnus 
 turned his thoughts wholly upon the conquest of Ireland, 
 as a valuable addition to those he had already made. He, 
 therefore, gave orders for the preparation of a large fleet, 
 as well as of a considerable body of land forces ; and in the 
 mean time, sailed, with sixteen vessels, that he might take 
 a view of the country himself. But, having incautiously 
 left their ships, his party were surrounded by the indignant 
 Irish, who lay in ambush to receive them ; and Magnus 
 himself, with nearly all his followers, fell a sacrifice to the 
 fury of the incensed natives. 
 
 The ravages and distresses which the ambitious conduct 
 of the two rival monarchs, — the one in the north and the 
 other in the south, — had brought upon Ireland, appear to 
 have made, at length, an indelible impression on their 
 own minds, in the latter part of their lives. Men of little 
 minds frequently cast the blame of their conduct upon 
 others ; or, if they find no better means of clearing them- 
 selves, they endeavour, by specious reasons or false pre- 
 tences, to justify their own proceedings. But this was not 
 the case with these two potentates. It is said that they 
 both became great penitents, and endeavoured to make 
 some compensation to the public, and especially to the 
 Church, for all the evils which their crimes had brought 
 upon their unhappy country. Mortogh, we are informed, 
 convened the estates of Munster at Cashel, after his 
 reconciliation with his powerful rival, and with their con- 
 sent alienated for ever that city from the provincial crown, 
 
270 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 and appropriated it to the churcli.* The subsequent part 
 of his reign was marked with the same solicitude for the 
 interests of tlic pujiic : but being in a declining state of 
 health, he solemnly renounced the crown of Munster in 
 favour of his brother Dermod, A. D. 1116, and retired to 
 the monastery of St. Carthagh, at Lismore, where he died 
 a great penitent, in the month of March, 1119, and was 
 buried with much funeral pomp at Killaloe.f His great 
 Ultonian rival survived him but two years. The latter 
 having entered the monastery of St. Columba at Derry, 
 died there in the seventy-third year of his age. 
 
 A. D. 1119. Towards the conclusion of a monarchy thus 
 divided between two rival princes, Turlogh, the young king 
 of Connaught, surnamed the Great, had set himself in 
 opposition to them both ; and, on the death of the latter, he 
 was almost without a competitor in his pretensions to the 
 sovereignty of the whole kingdom. He was not, however, 
 left to enjoy that dignity without a considerable degree of 
 molestation and disturbance. It is reasonable to suppose 
 that he grasped at sovereign authority as soon as Donald 
 had departed this life, but he was so far from really posses- 
 sing the power of a monarch, that some writers reckon seven- 
 
 * " A convocation of the people of LeathMogha, or the south- 
 ern half of Ireland, was held at Cashel, at which Murtogh 
 O'Brien, with the nobles of the laity and clergy, and O'Diinan, 
 the illustrious bishop and chief senior of Ireland attended, and 
 on which occasion Murtogh O'Brien made such an offering as 
 king never made before him, namely, Cashel of the Kings, which 
 he bestowed on the devout, without the intervention of a laic 
 or an ecclesiastic, but for the use of the religious of Ireland in 
 general." — Annals of the Four Masters^ at A. 1101. 
 
 t See Annals of Innisfallen at the respective dates. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEFORE RODERIC. 271 
 
 teen years of an interregnum, from the death of Mortogh 
 till the accession of Turlogh to the throne of Ireland. 
 
 Turlogh was the son of Roderic 0' Conor, the king of 
 Connaught, and was a descendant of the Hy-Brune-'^ 
 branch of the Heremonian race. From this branch were 
 likewise descended the O'Flahertys and O'Maillys of 
 Connaught ; the O'Reillys of Eastern Breffny ; the 
 O'Fallons or Falloons of Clan-Madach ; the O'Flins, and 
 many other families of considerable repute. The cognate 
 branch of this illustrious family was the Hy-Fiacrasf of 
 Tir-Fiacra and Tir-Awly. Besides these names, so distin- 
 guished in Irish history, the Hy-Brunes are the ancestors 
 of the O'Conor Don, the O'Rourkes, who for a time obtained 
 the sovereignty of Connaught ; and the Mac Dermots, who 
 were hereditary mareschals of the western province. 
 
 Turlogh O'Conor was the first of his family, since the 
 reign of Eochy Maymedon in the fourth century, who, 
 from being king of Connaught had aspired to the mon- 
 archy. At a time when faction and turbulence carried 
 every thing before them, and when the estates were not 
 assembled at Tara, as the constitution required in order to 
 proceed to a regular election, the succession to the national 
 throne was generally determined by the sword. Connor 
 
 * " So called from Brian, the eldest son of Eochy Maymedon, 
 king of Ireland, A. D. 358. This Eochy was the father of Niall 
 the Great, and king of Connaught before his election to the 
 Teamorian throne." — O^Con. Dissert., Note at p. 282. 
 
 t " So called from Fiacra, another son of Eochy Maymedon, 
 and the father of Dathy, the last of our heathen monarchs, killed 
 in Lombardy, and buried in Relig-na-ri, near Cruachain." — 
 282. 
 
272 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 O'Brien, called Slaparsalach, or of the dirty robe, had 
 gucceeded his father Dermod, in 1120, on the throne of 
 Leath-Mogha ; and, being a prince of a brave and enter- 
 prising disposition, he was as ambitious of obtaining the 
 monarchy as Turlogh was, and proved a powerful rival to 
 the latter, while endeavouring to attain to that distinguished 
 station. Dermod, the father and predecessor of Connor, 
 had, some time before his death, invaded Connaught ; and 
 Turlogh retaliated, in the second year of Connor's reign, 
 by marching his forces to Cashel, Lismore, and other 
 places in Munster, and sorely harassing the innocent and 
 unoffending inhabitants ; but the Momonians attacked 
 them on their retreat, near Ardfinan, and completely dis- 
 persed them, after having lost many of their chiefs, as well 
 as a considerable number of their troops of an inferior 
 grade. 
 
 Turlogh, however, was not to be disheartened by such a 
 defeat as he had now received ; and, in the month of Novem- 
 ber following, he entered Munster again at the head of a 
 more powerful army than the last. For upwards of two 
 months his troops remained encamped near Birr; and, 
 though his followers appeared inactive during that time, he 
 was not idle himself in promoting the special object which 
 he had in view. On this occasion he used all his influence 
 and address to separate the Eugenians from the Dalcassians, 
 by representing to them how long their family had been 
 deprived of their right of succession to the throne of 
 Munster. Incensed by the hints thrown out by this subtle 
 Conacian, Donogh MacCarthy, and several other Eugenian 
 princes, entered into a private treaty with Turlogh. But 
 notwithstanding his success on this point, he saw that the 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEFORE RODERIC. 273 
 
 Dalgais, so long as they continued to be united, were still a 
 formidable body, and that it was therefore necessary to sow 
 the seeds of dissension among them. When Connor had 
 been proclaimed king of Leath-Mogha, his next brother, 
 Turlogh, succeeded to the throne of Thomond ; but, at the 
 instigation of the king of Connaught, Teige Gle O'Brien, 
 a younger brother, who treacherously seized his person, 
 had him conveyed to the camp of the Conacians, and 
 usurped the title and dignity of which he contrived to 
 deprive him. The Dalcassians were by this means divided ; 
 and, by supporting Donogh MacCarthy against his elder 
 brother Cormac, the cunning Conacian prince sowed 
 gimilar dissensions among the Eugenians. 
 
 A. D. 1122. Sensible that in a time of anarchy and 
 public discord every thing is to be effected by promptitude 
 and intrepidity, Turlogh proceeded to compel the people of 
 Leinster, Meath, and Dublin, to give him hostages ; and, 
 in the following year, -he entered Ulster at the head of a 
 gallant and well appointed army, and, having overrun 
 Tyrone and Tyrconnel, he obliged the chiefs of these two 
 great houses, together with several others, to submit to his 
 power and to acknowledge his authority. 
 
 A. D. 1127. Having resolved to crush the power of 
 Munster, Turlogh collected all his forces, and, in 1127, 
 crossed the Shannon at Athlone, and marched without 
 opposition as far as Cork. Here he was joined by Donogh 
 MacCarthy and other Eugenian princes, who became more 
 closely attached to his interest from his deposing Cormac, 
 the elder brother, and causing Donogh to be proclaimed 
 king of Desmond. Having thus placed Tiege O'Brien on 
 the throne of Thomond, and Donogh MacCarthy on that 
 
274 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 of South Munster, he thereby circumscribed the power of 
 Connor, the king of Leath Mogha ; but the latter, after 
 taking such steps as strengthened his own interest, marched 
 his army into Desmond, recalled Cormac from the monas- 
 tery of Lismore, whither he had retired, restored him to his 
 throne, and drove Donogh and his party into Connaught. 
 
 A. J). 1132. Having established his authority at home, 
 Connor next compelled the Lagenians to return to their 
 duty and to acknowledge him as their chief; invaded 
 Connaught, and, defeated the Conacians in a battle fought 
 near Athlone, in which he was met by the collected forces 
 of that province. Similar success attended his arms in 
 the following year; but having entered Connaught again, 
 in gome time after, with a determination to subdue Tur- 
 logh, or to perish in the attempt, a peace was concluded 
 between them, through the interference of the clergy, in 
 which Connor was acknowledged as king of Leath-Mogha, 
 and Turlogh king of Leath-Cuin, perhaps reserving to 
 himself the title of Ard-Righ, or nominal monarch of the 
 coufttry. 
 
 Connor, who was a prince of considerable policy, as well 
 as of invincible courage, did not dismiss his auxiliaries, as 
 was usual on such occasions, but marched at their head 
 into Ulster, carrying on a war in that province rather of 
 depredation than ^f conquest.* Alarmed by his proceed- 
 ings, and fearing the loss of such things as were valuable, 
 the people of Tyrone had their effects of this description 
 deposited in the church of Derry, and other sacred edifices, 
 as places of the greatest safety. The people of Tyrconnel 
 
 * O'Hal., Book XII., Chap. V. 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEIORE RODERIC. 275 
 
 had imitated their example, and lodged theirs in the 
 cathedral of Kaphoe. But Connor had little regard for 
 the sanctity of such places ; and, in his progress, he plun- 
 dered all the churches and monasteries as he passed along, 
 and appropriated all he could seize to his own use. Nor 
 did he cease to be the scourge and vexation of his country, 
 until death put an end to his ambition and cupidity, 
 in the month of November, A. D. 1142, and thus freed 
 his great western rival from that incessant annoyance which 
 he occasioned in the kingdom. 
 
 But, notwithstanding Turlogh O'Conor was delivered 
 from a powerful antagonist by the death of Connor O'Brien, 
 Turlogh O'Brien, the brother and successor of the latter, 
 bid fair to be as troublesome to him as his predecessor had 
 been. Amidst all the opposition, however, which this 
 monarch experienced, he not only maintained his own 
 ground, but generally subdued those princes and chieftains 
 that opposed him. Dermod Mac Murchad, the king of 
 Leinster, a man whose name is associated with the total 
 dissolution of the Irish monarchy, and who was at this 
 time hated by his own subjects, was a prince whom he 
 frequently chastised : and indeed all the provinces felt the 
 weight of his resentment. But, towards the end of his 
 reign, he found in Mortogh O'Lachluin, prince of the 
 north Hy-Nialls, and grand-nephew of the late Donald 
 O'Lochluin, a powerful and influential antagonist. They 
 attacked each other with various success both by sea and 
 land ;* and, it is said, that the monarch's power was so 
 much humbled by this northern dynast, that he was obliged 
 
 * O'Con. Dissert., p. 257. 
 
276 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 to give him hostages as a security for his peaceable 
 behaviour, even six years before he died. The latter, who 
 brought the remains of the Danes and the naval power of 
 North Britain to support him in the contest, was, however, 
 defeated in the end. But the death of Turlogh put a 
 period to this collision of conflicting interests, and delivered 
 into the hands of Mortogh the sovereignty of the greater 
 part of the whole island. 
 
 The true character of Turlogh 0' Conor could be but 
 imperfectly exhibited in the distracted state of public 
 affairs during the whole period of his administration. He 
 was a prince of great abilities and resolution ; but when it 
 is asserted that he died ''in the highest estimation for 
 piety,"* the intelligent reader will scarcely give credit to 
 the statement. No monarch ever experienced more of the 
 uncertainty andversatility of professed friends, nor defeated 
 the designs of his enemies with greater success. His 
 simulation and dissimulation were most unscrupulous, 
 whenever he had any particular object to accomplish ; and 
 such was the command which he possessed over his own 
 temper that he had always the advantage of his most 
 powerful opponents. 
 
 But Turlogh, though exhibiting failings of a very grave 
 character, was not without his virtues both as a man and 
 a ruler. As well as the distraction of the times would 
 permit, he reformed the civil constitution ; and his efforts 
 for the good of the nation, under the most inauspicious 
 circumstances, like well-disposed shades in painting, threw 
 an additional lustre on the more ornamented parts of his 
 
 * See O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 316, 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEEORE RODERIC. 277 
 
 character. His piety seems to have consisted, in repairing 
 the cathedral of Tuam, erecting a spacious hospital in that 
 city ; and there, as well as in other places, evincing the 
 most liberal munificence to the church.* He also repaired 
 the public roads, threw two spacious bridges over the 
 Shannon, one at Athlone, and another at Ath-Crochta, 
 besides a bridge which he built across the river Suck. His 
 love of justice, and his inflexibility in punishing those who 
 dared to violate the laws, were so great, that when Roderic, 
 his own son, was imprisoned for some offence, he refused 
 to release him for the course of a year ; and, even then, 
 it required the united influence of some of the most 
 distinguished ecclesiastics to prevail upon him to exercise 
 his royal clemency in the liberation of the delinquent. In 
 short, had this prince been placed under less inauspicious 
 circumstances, or had he been born two or three centuries 
 earlier, his talents would have raised him to an equality 
 with the most distinguished monarch that ever ruled the 
 Irish nation ; and then, perhaps, he might have been 
 entitled, with some degree of justice, " Turloghthe Great." 
 A. D. 1156. The change of circumstances which so 
 considerably augmented Mortogh's power, seemed to promise 
 the restoration of the Hy-Niall family to the sovereignty 
 of Ireland ; but the prevalence of faction, and the contu- 
 macy of those who were sensible that their own influence 
 would be abridged by the existence of a regular monarchy, 
 
 * " But say, ye casuists, did he, or his formidable rival, 
 Connor O'Brien, really merit this epithet (pious) so liberally 
 bestowed on both ? Will the erecting of a few churches and 
 monasteries atone for the immature death of thousands, and the 
 ruin of as many more ?"— O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 316, 
 
278 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 disappointed .the expectations of such as had the real 
 interests of their country at heart. Perhaps the impetu- 
 osity of this prince, as well as the advice of evil counsel- 
 lors, had an extensive influence in producing this effect. 
 Like a woman of fierce vindictive hate who finds her 
 affections first a matter of speculation and subsequently of 
 outrage, this monarch was resolved to humble and punish 
 those princes, who had acted a double part towards him- 
 self during the lifetime of his Conacian antagonist. A 
 short time, therefore after the death of his rival, he was 
 to be seen marching his army in triumph through different 
 territories, and receiving the submission of their respective 
 chiefs. In the year after his assumption of the monarchy, 
 having first overrun Ulster, Meath, and Leinster, he 
 entered Munster, encamped before Limerick, and obliged 
 the princes of both Munsters, as well as the people of 
 that city, to do him homage, and to deliver him hostages 
 for their future fidelity. 
 
 The only prince of distinction who was able to dispute 
 his authority, or to give him any disturbance, was Roderic 
 0' Conor, the son of Turlogh the Great, who had succeeded 
 his father on the Conacian throne, and now bid defiance 
 to the power that Mortogh had assumed. Having invaded 
 the monarch's own territory of Tyrone, he ravaged the 
 whole country, and laid waste the most fruitful and 
 cultivated places in that district, as indifferent to the 
 miseries which he was then creating as is the dancing 
 brook to the overshadowing willow. In the same manner 
 he visited Munster, Leinster, and Meath, receiving hos- 
 tages from their princes, and trampling upon the rights and 
 liberties of the people. Meanwhile Mortogh was by no 
 
THE IRISH MONARCHY BEFORE RODERIC. 279 
 
 means inactive, either in giving opposition to the king of 
 Connaught, or in subduing those princes who refused to 
 acknowledge his authority. Every province in Ireland, 
 and almost every considerable territory, was visited by the 
 royal army, and the most signal success generally attended 
 Mortogh's standard. Even Roderic himself felt the 
 effects of his power upon some occasions ; and, in 1162, 
 was obliged to submit to the terms of a peace which were 
 highly honourable to the monarch. Had the calm which 
 ensued for a short time been real, or the result of measures 
 which could promise its permanence, it could not have 
 failed to give pleasure to all the lovers of their country ; 
 and as the rainbow glows with the greatest beauty when 
 appearing on the darkest cloud, so the disastrous circum- 
 stances which had immediately preceded it would have had 
 a tendency to set it off to the greater advantage. But 
 this delusive peace was rather like that listless languor 
 which sometimes ensues when the animal functions are 
 clogged, and the powers of nature cease to act with their 
 accustomed energy : and subsequent events soon ruffled 
 the stillness of this repose, and scenes of blood marked 
 the conclusion of the reign of this impetuous and injudi- 
 cious monarch. 
 
 Intoxicated with success, and stimulated by the advice 
 of evil counsellors, on a slight offence given him by Eochy, 
 an Ultonian prince, Mortogh entered his dominions with 
 an armed force, committing various depredations amongst 
 his people, and carried away captive many of his vassals. 
 
 A peace, however, through the mediation of the successor 
 of St. Patrick in the see of Armagh, and the prince of 
 Orgial, was concluded between the monarch and this 
 
280 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 dynast ; and was solemnly ratified by oath in the presence of 
 that prelate and other witnesses. But the very next year, 
 from what motive it is impossible to ascertain, having seized 
 upon Eochy, Mortogh caused his eyes to be put out, and 
 three of his chief confidants to be assassinated. Enraged 
 at so flagrant a violation of public faith, the king of 
 Orgial, who had been one of the guarantees of the peace, 
 collected all his forces, rushed suddenly into Tyrone, and 
 in the engagement which ensued, and which the Irish 
 annalists call the battle of Litterluin, defeated the few 
 tumultuary troops which Mortogh was able to collect on 
 such a surprise, and the monarch himself was found buried 
 under heaps of his enemies. 
 
 A. D. 1166. Thus, after a reign of ten years, Mortogh, 
 fell a sacrifice to the vengeance of a much-injured people ; 
 and the Hy-Niall interest having sunk with him to rise no 
 more, a way was opened to Roderic O'Conor to ascend the 
 sovereign throne, which was occupied but a short time when 
 the Irish monarchy itself arrived at its final dissolution. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Irish Church from the Danish Invasion 
 
 TILL THE accession OP RODERICK O'CONOR. 
 
 The Danish invasion proved highly detrimental to the 
 interests of the Irish Church, and the subsequent events 
 connected with the conversion of the invaders to Christian- 
 ity ultimately led to the final subjugation of its hierarchy, 
 to the dominion and authority of the Roman pontiff. It 
 was impossible that any country should have been invaded 
 by such barbarous and uncivilized enemies, its schools of 
 learning destroyed, and its most eminent ecclesiastics 
 obliged either to conceal themselves in various secluded 
 retreats or to seek an asylum in foreign lands, without feeling 
 the deteriorating effects of such a visitation. Such was the 
 vast emigration of learned men from Ireland which took 
 place in the ninth century, that almost every country in 
 Europe began to reap immediate benefits from it. " Why 
 should I mention Ireland," says Eric of Auxerre, " almost 
 the whole nation, despising the dangers of the sea, resort to 
 our coasts with a numerous train of philosophers, of whom 
 the most learned enjoin themselves a voluntary exile, to be 
 in the service of our most sagacious Solomon,"^ 
 
 * " Quid Hiberniam memorem, contempto pelagi discrimine, 
 pene totam, cum grege philosophorum, ad litora nostra migran- 
 tem ? Quorum quisquis peritior est ultro sibi indicit exilium, ut 
 Solomoni sapientissimo famuletur ad votum." — Prcefat. Act. S. 
 German, 
 
 6 
 
282 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Nor was it merely in the diffusion of learning and 
 religion that they conferred benefits on those countries that 
 afforded them an asylum : but as a French historian 
 observes, the face of the country where they took up their 
 abode was changed by the very labour of their hands. " It 
 must be acknowledged." says he, '' that these crowds of 
 holy men were highly useful to France, considered merely 
 in a temporal light. For the long incursions of the bar- 
 barians having quite desolated the country, it was still in 
 many places covered with woods and thickets, and the low 
 grounds with marshes. These pious religious, who devoted 
 themselves to the service of God, not to a life of indolence, 
 laboured with their own hands to grub up, to reclaim, to 
 till, to plant, and to build, not so much for themselves, 
 who lived with great frugality, but to feed and cherish the 
 poor; insomuch, that uncultivated and frightful deserts 
 soon became agreeable and fruitful dwellings. The heavens 
 seemed to favour the soil reclaimed and cultivated by 
 hands so pure and disinterested. I shall say nothing of 
 their having preserved almost all that remains of the 
 history of those times."* 
 
 Amongst the numerous lettered emigrants of this age, 
 whose names have been transmitted to posterity by foreign 
 writers, as well as by their own countrymen, Johannes 
 Scotus Erigena was the most prominently celebrated. He 
 was born some time in the early part of the ninth century, 
 and was a most learned and accomplished scholar before 
 he fled to France, in 846, together with some of his coun- 
 trymen who had escaped the fury of the Danes at th^t 
 
 * Mezer, Hist, de la France, Tom. I., p. 117. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 283 
 
 calamitous period. Of this distinguished and eminent 
 man, a well known ecclesiastical historian observes : " The 
 philosophy and logic that were taught in the European 
 schools in the ninth century, scarcely deserved such honour- 
 able titles, and were little better than an empty jargon. 
 There were, however, to be found in various places, parti- 
 cularly among the Irish, men of acute parts and extensive 
 knowledge who were] perfectly well entitled to the appella- 
 tion of philosophers. The chief of these was Johannes 
 Scotus Erigena, a native of Ireland, the friend and com- 
 panion of Charles the Bald. Scotus was endowed with an 
 excellent and truly superior genius, and was considerably 
 versed both in Greek and Latin erudition. He explained to 
 his disciples the philosophy of Aristotle, for which he was 
 singularly well qualified by his thorough knowledge of the 
 Greek language : but as his genius was too bold and aspi- 
 ring to confine itself to the authority and decisions of the 
 Stagyrite, he pushed his philosophical researches yet fur- ' 
 ther, dared to think for himself, and ventured to pursue 
 truth without any other guide than his own reason. We 
 have extant, of his composition, five Books concerning the 
 divisions of nature, an intricate and subtle production in 
 which the causes and principles of all things are investi- 
 gated with a considerable degree of sagacity, and in which 
 also the precepts of Christianity are allegorically explained ; 
 yet in such a manner as to show, that their ultimate end 
 is the union of the soul with the Supreme Being. He was 
 the first who blended the scholastic theology with the 
 mystic, and formed them into one system."^ 
 
 * Mosheim's Eccles. Hist., Cent. IX. 
 
284 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Scotus, whose character was acknowleged to be excellent 
 even by his enemies, was admitted to the friendship of 
 Charles the Bald upon account of his various and 
 manifold accomplishments. This prince was so much 
 pleased with his learning, eloquence, and wit, that he kept 
 him constantly with himself, and honoured him with a 
 place at his own table. The works attributed to 
 Dionysius the Areopagite had in that age excited much 
 interest amongst the French, owing to an opinion which 
 then prevailed that he was the same as St. Denis, the first 
 Bishop of Paris. As Scotus was well skilled in the Greek 
 language, he was commissioned by the king to translate 
 these works into Latin ; a task which he performed with 
 such ability and accuracy as to give great satisfaction to his 
 royal patron, to whom he dedicated the performance.* 
 Of this work, Anastatius, Librarian of the Roman see, 
 about seven years after its publication, in a letter written 
 to the king, remarks : — " It is wonderful how that bar- 
 barousf man, who, placed at the extremity of the world, 
 might, in proportion as he was remote from the rest of 
 mankind, be supposed to be unacquainted with other 
 languages, was able to comprehend such deep things and 
 to render them in another tongue. I mean John the 
 Scotigena, whom I have heard spoken of as a holy man in 
 every respect. But he has greatly diminished the advantage 
 that might be derived from such an undertaking, having 
 been over-cautious in giving word for word — which I think 
 
 * fsser. Ep. Hib. Syllog., Nos. 22, 23. 
 
 t Usser. Ibid., No. 24.— With th« most consummate arrogance, 
 it was usual for Roman writers in that age, to denominate 
 every man barbarous who was not a Greek or Roman. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 285 
 
 he had no other reason for than that, as he was an humble 
 man, he did not presume to deviate from the precise 
 meaning of the words, lest he might* in any wise injure 
 the truth of the text." 
 
 In the meantime a question in polemic Divinity which 
 had before disturbed the peace of the Church, respecting 
 predestination and the efficacy of divine grace, was revived 
 in France by the writings of a monk named Godescalcus ; 
 and, after various disputants had appeared in the field, 
 Hincmar, the Archbishop of Rheims, and Pardulus, the 
 Bishop of Laon, applied to Scotus to draw up a treatise 
 upon this subject. With this request he complied, and 
 some time before the year 852, he published his work in 
 nineteen chapters. In this book, which he dedicated to 
 the two prelates who had induced him to undertake the 
 task, he professed to follow closely the doctrine of the most 
 celebrated of the Fathers, but notwithstanding this pro- 
 fession, it was condemned by the third council of Valence, 
 about three years after its publication, and represented by 
 the divines of that synod as being replete ^ith impertinent 
 syllogisms, containing inventions of the Devil rather than 
 any proposition of faith.^ It was also warmly attacked by 
 several of the predestinarians, amongst whom the names of 
 Prudentius, Bishop of Troyes, and Floras, a Deacon of 
 the Church of Lyons^ were the more conspicuous.f 
 
 * "In quibus commentum diaboli potius quam argiiraentum 
 aliquod fidei deprehenditur."— fXewr. Lib. XLIX. Sect. 23. 
 
 t " In their answers, they charge Scotus with the doctrines of 
 Pelagius ; and it would seem by them, as if his writings were 
 not only condemned, but he himself confined for publishing them. 
 
286 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Nor were the subsequent publications whicb issued from 
 the pen of Scotus less ofiFensive to some of his theological 
 opponents than this treatise on the doctrine of predestina- 
 tion. During the ninth century a controversy respecting 
 the Eucharist engaged the attention and exercised the 
 ingenuity of some of the most eminent scholars in France. 
 Haimo, Bishop of Halberstad, and his followers maintained 
 that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper contained neither 
 sign nor mystery, inasmuch as the sign was necessarily 
 excluded by the reality. This argument, which was the 
 legitimate offspring of the doctrine of the corporal pres- 
 ence, did not satisfy the minds of others ; and Hincmar, 
 Paschasius, and some other divines of more moderate 
 views, admitted both the sign and the reality ; whilst a 
 third party, with Bertramn, or Ratramn, a monk of 
 Corbie, at their head, contended for a triple distinction of 
 the body of Christ ;* namely, his natural body which was 
 born of the Virgin, his sacramental body contained in the 
 Eucharist, and his mystical body the Church. In the 
 disputes which were carried on by these subtle theologians, 
 each party in turn made frequent appeals to the king ; and 
 it was probably owing to this circumstance that Scotus was 
 induced to involve himself in the controversy. As his 
 B ook on the Eucharist is not now extant, it is impossible 
 to say with certainty what were the exact shades of opinion 
 advanced by the author, but certain it is, they were 
 opposed to the doctrine of the corporal presence, or that 
 which is called in more modern times transubstantiation.f 
 
 * Lingard's Antiq. of the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 496. 
 t Ascelin, who lived in the eleventh century, and who had 
 read his treatise, says, that " like a poisoner, he presented some 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 287 
 
 The intrepidity with which Scotus supported his opinions 
 on this question against so many powerful and influential 
 opponents evinces a degree of moral courage which few 
 men have possessed, even under more favourable circum- 
 stances. Not only had his former works been condemned 
 by two councils and a pope, but his translation of the 
 works of Dionysius, though rendered so literally as to 
 incur censure, was exposed to the same suspicion and 
 animadversion. It is said that Nicholas, the Roman 
 pontiff wrote to his royal patron about this performance, 
 complaining that the author, though a man of erudition, 
 was suspected strongly of heterodoxy ; and that therefore 
 the book should have been sent to him, for his approbation 
 before it was published :* but what action the king took 
 in consequence of this letter is not known with certainty. 
 
 "When, or in what manner Scotus died is not authenti- 
 cally recorded :f but whilst his great erudition reflected 
 honour upon his native country, and his knowledge not 
 only of the Greek and Latin, but also of the Oriental 
 languages, proved the flourishing state of letters amongst 
 the Irish in that age, his great humility and moral circum- 
 spection extorted even from his enemies the reluctant 
 acknowledgment that he was a man of sterling worth and 
 exemplary piety. Other countries have claimed the honour 
 
 things apparently sweet, but which would produce death ; and 
 that, though he alleged passages of the Fathers, he spoiled them 
 by his glosses."— Xanr^a?t'5 Eccles. Hist., Vol. III., Chap. XXI., 
 Note 93. 
 
 * Spottiswoode's Church History. 
 
 t O'Halloran says " he returned to Ireland in 864, and died 
 there in 874 ;" but upon what authority we know not. 
 
288 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 of his birth,* but that he was a native of Ireland his 
 name sufficienly evinces, and the testimony of foreigners 
 who knew him personally, puts it beyond all doubt. His 
 works are numerous ; for besides those already mentioned 
 he translated the Greek Scholia of St. Maximus on difficult 
 passages of Gregory Nazianzen ; and is likewise considered 
 to have been the author of a tract upon the differences and 
 agreements of the Greek and Latin Verbs. f 
 
 The number of learned ecclesiastics who flocked from 
 Ireland to the continent of Europe in this age, and their 
 obviou? dissent from those churches that were under the 
 jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, could not fail to excite 
 the apprehensions of those who in more modern times 
 would be denominated the Ultramontane party ; and in 
 the year 813, a decree was passed, in a council held at 
 Chalons-sur-Saone, forbidding certain Irishmen who gave 
 themselves out to be Bishops, to ordain priests or deacons 
 without the consent of the Ordinary. J Nor was this alarm 
 confined to one particular locality, but it extended itself to 
 almost every place to which the Irish emigrants had direc- 
 ted their course. So early as the latter part of the seventh 
 century, Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, had decreed 
 that they who were consecrated by Irish or British 
 bishops, should be consecrated anew by a Catholic one; 
 and in the year 816, the council of Cealc-hy ordained 
 " that none of the Irish extraction" should be permitted to 
 usurp to himself the sacred ministry in any one's diocese, 
 nor should he be allowed to touch any thing which belonged 
 
 * See Led. Ant,, pp. 176, 111. 
 
 t Usser, Ep. Hib. Syllog., No. XXIII. 
 
 t Fleur, Hist. Eccles., Lib. XLYI. Sect. 5. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 289 
 
 to those of the holy order ; that the laity should not receive 
 anything from him in Baptism, or in the celebration of 
 the mass, nor were such priests to administer the Eucharist 
 to the people, " because" say the Council, " we are not 
 certain how, or by whom they were ordained. We know 
 it is enjoined in the canons, that no bishop, or presbyter, 
 invade the parish of another without the bishop's consent ; 
 so much the rather should we refuse to receive the sacred 
 ministrations from other nations, where there is no such 
 order as that of metropolitans, nor any regard paid to the 
 other orders." * 
 
 In England, it appears, an objection was raised to the 
 validity of Irish orders, because the hierarchy of the 
 country had no metropolitans, nor was it in conformity 
 with the Roman model, with its incidental titles and 
 appendages. But in France, other ground was taken, as 
 it was said that the ordinations performed in tj^t country 
 by the Irish were irregular and most simoniacal : the 
 latter calumny, however propagated only by their interested 
 detractors, is suflSciently silenced by an appeal to the 
 character of the eminent divines and indefatigable mission- 
 aries who have been thus so recklessly traduced. 
 
 The conversion of the Danes to Christianity, about the 
 middle of the tenth century, gave the first effectual stroke 
 to the independence and purity of the ancient Church of 
 Ireland. Before the invasion of these foreigners, she had 
 nobly adhered to the doctrines and discipline which had 
 been established in that country by St. Patrick and his 
 successors. The plausible fictions which ultimately super- 
 
 * Led. Ant., p. 393. 
 
290 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 seded them were unknown in Ireland under its ancient 
 polity, and continued to be so in the remoter districts till, 
 by the influence of priestly intrigue and the united policy 
 of England and Kome, a complete spiritual revolution was 
 effected at a subsequent period. 
 
 The first of the Scandinavian settlers that, in any great 
 number, embraced the Christian faith were those of Dublin ; 
 but it does not appear that their change of profession made 
 any alteration in their predatory habits, or their predi- 
 lection for murder and robbery.* The perpetual wars 
 excited by these barbarians had been as inimical to literary 
 repose as they had been destructive of literary memorials ; 
 and, instead of joining with the natives, after their conver- 
 sion, to revive those institutions which their remorse- 
 less fury had nearly annihilated, they were the means of 
 subverting, in part, the independence of the Irish Church, 
 and introducing the Benedictine order,f with its usual 
 concomitants of superstition and ignorance. 
 
 In the eleventh century these strangers had kings in 
 almost every part of the island. Sitric, the king of Dublin, 
 erected a see within the walls of that city, over which 
 Donatus was appointed to preside as their first bishop.J 
 The mutual hostilities, which had been continually carried 
 on between the native Irish and these foreigners, became a 
 
 * See Ware. Ant., C. XXIV. 
 
 t Led. Ant., p. 427. 
 
 t The first bishop of Dublin was called Dunan, or perhapa 
 Donogh, which was Latinized into Donatns. Doctor Ledwich 
 says he was a Dane. (Ant. Ire., p. 428.) But judging from his 
 name, he was most probably an Irishman. — See Lani^an, Vol. 
 III., p. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 291 
 
 barrier to any friendly intercouse with each other afterwards 
 in religious matters : and, it is said, that this first prelate 
 in the see of Dublin was consecrated by the archbishop of 
 Canterbury and not by any of the bishops of the Irish 
 Church. It is certain, however, that the city of Dublin 
 received the episcopal dignity from the English primate;* 
 and thus was a church erected in the island under 
 the immediate jurisdiction of that dignified ecclesiastic, 
 and without any connexion with the Patrician hierarchy so 
 long established amongst the Irish people. To Donatus 
 was granted by this Danish prince the site on which Christ's 
 Church Cathedral now stands, for the erection of that 
 sacred edifice : lands were also appropriated for its endow- 
 ment, f and an episcopal residence was built adjoining to it^ 
 on the spot where the old " Four Courts" formerly stood, 
 together with the chapel of St. Michael in the same neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 On the death of Donatus,^ the clergy and people of 
 Dublin elected a priest named Patrick as his successor, 
 and recommended him to Lanfranc, the archbishop of 
 Canterbury, for consecration. In their letter of recom- 
 mendation, in which they "offer due obedience " "to the 
 venerable metropoHtan of the holy church of Canterbury," 
 they style Dublin, "the metropolis of the island of 
 Ireland ; " for what reason it is difficult to determine, as 
 
 * " Antecessorum enim vestrorum magisterio semper nostros 
 libenter subdimus a quo recordamur nostros accepisse dignitatem 
 ecclesiasticam." — Usser, Syllog., p. 100. 
 
 t Lan., Vol. III., p. 434. 
 
 t A. D. 10T4. See Ware's Bishops. 
 
292 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 tlie new see was confined to the city, its bishops having 
 no power except over the Danes of Dublin, and consequently 
 no jurisdiction over any portion of the Irish bishops. 
 Hitherto the successor of St. Patrick in the see of Armagh 
 had been considered the primus amongst the bishops of 
 Ireland, but they had no metropolitan in the strict sense of 
 the word ; for, as we have already seen, the English objected 
 to their orders on that account.* But the bishops of Armagh 
 had continued the unjustifiable custom of hereditary succes- 
 sion, had refused to submit to the authority of the canon law, 
 and had evinced a disposition to maintain the independence 
 of the Irish Church, all which must have been very offensive 
 to the English primate, who was a Norman by birth and a 
 rigid disciplinarian ; he therefore hailed with delight this 
 opportunity of humbling the Armachian prelates for their 
 long continued obstinacy, by acknowledging the metro- 
 political dignity to belong to another who was likely to be 
 more obsequious to his wishes in chaining the Irish Church 
 to the foot of the papal throne. 
 
 The consecration of the new bishop of Dublin, which 
 took place in St. Paul's Church, London, was preceded 
 by a profession of obedience, in which the spiritual supe- 
 riority of the English primate was explicitly acknowledged. 
 It was in the following form : — " Whoever presides over 
 others ought not to scorn to be subject to others, but rather 
 make it his study to humbly render, in God's name, to his 
 superiors the obedience which he expects from those, who 
 are placed under him. On this account, I, Patrick, elected 
 prelate to govern Dublin the metropolis of Ireland, do, 
 
 * See Led. Ant. Ire., p. 393. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 293 
 
 reverened Father Lanfranc, primate of the Britons, and 
 archbishop of the holy Church of Canterbury, offer thee 
 this charter of my profession ; and I promise to obey thee 
 and thy successors in all things appertaining to the Chris- 
 tian religion." 
 
 By this profession of obedience the new bishop of 
 Dublin became a suffragan of the see of Canterbury ; and 
 on his return to Ireland, Lanfranc gave him a written . 
 testimonial of his consecration, together with two private 
 letters, one addressed to Gothric, sometimes called Godred 
 Mac Begnal, in which he styles him " the glorious king of 
 Ireland; " and another to Turlogh, " the magnificent king 
 of Ireland." In his letter to the former, this prelate 
 adverts to some customs which, it is probable, still pre- 
 vailed amongst the foreigners, notwithstanding their 
 nominal profession of the Christian religion, and which he 
 desires that prince to correct, such as the marriage of 
 women too near akin either by affinity or consanguinity, 
 the separation of wives from their lawful husbands,* and 
 also the exchange of wives, which they sometimes prac- 
 tised. 
 
 A similar complaint is reiterated in his letter to Turlogh, 
 but this is no proof that these practices prevailed amongst 
 the native Irish. Although Gothric is called king, he 
 was at that time a vassal to the monarch, having submitted 
 to him as his liege sovereign in 1073 ; and notwithstanding 
 Lanfranc speaks of these evils as existing in Turlogh's 
 dominions, it is most probable he alluded to that part of 
 the kingdom which was held by Gothric under him.f 
 
 * Vide Usser. Syllog., p. 70. 
 tJSee^Lanigan, ut supra, p. 476. 
 
294 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 With respect to marriages contracted within the pro- 
 hibited degrees of affinity or consanguinity, it may be 
 observed that the Irish Church had no rule of faith and 
 practice but the written word of God.* Her members 
 therefore paid no attention to those prohibitions that were 
 contained merely in the canon law, but contented them- 
 selves with the precepts of the Divine law on this subject 
 as laid down in the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. 
 This was therefore the ground of Lanfranc's charge against 
 the Irish clergy respecting their uncanonical marriages. 
 
 Other practices of the Irish, of which the Archbishop 
 complains in these letters, were such as no enlightened 
 divine, even of the Church of Rome, could absolutely 
 condemn. He says that bishops were consecrated by but 
 one, and that children were baptized without chrism ; and 
 he represents these as contrary to evangelical and apostolical 
 authority as well as repugnant to the injunctions of the 
 sacred canons. But he overlooked the circumstance that 
 Augustine, his predecessor, notwithstanding the presence 
 of at least three prelates was required at the consecration 
 of a bishop, had been exempted from this obligation by 
 Gregory his patron, and permitted by him to perform the 
 ceremony alone without any assistants. It is true, that 
 this relaxation of the discipline of the Church was to 
 
 * In the Irish canon entitled, " Of consanguinity in marriage," 
 which is the 29th of what is denominated the Synod of St. Patrick, 
 we have these words : Intelligite quid lex loquitur, non minu^ nee 
 plus. "Understand what the law says, not less nor more." 
 This was the uniform language of all the Irish ecclesiastics on 
 every other subject. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 295 
 
 cease with the circumstances which rendered it necessary,* 
 but it was an acknowledgement that, even in the opinion 
 of that pontiff, consecration by but one bishop was perfectly 
 valid. With respect to the baptism of children without 
 chrism, it is too puerile a subject to require any observa- 
 tions. 
 
 In order to remedy these supposed evils, Lanfranc 
 advises Turlogh to assemble a synod of his bishops and 
 clergy, at which he and his nobles might attend,f that 
 they might correct these irregularities, as well as put a 
 stop to all others that were in opposition to the sacred laws 
 of the Church. 
 
 The insinuating address and artful manner of this crafty 
 prelate soon produced the desired effect upon some of the 
 clergy of Ireland. Many of them became dissatisfied with 
 the simplicity and unostentatious observances of their 
 mother church, and were disposed to make some innova- 
 tions on her rituals and discipline ; whilst others, probably 
 terrified by the success of the Normans against their 
 English neighbours, judged it better on this occasion to 
 endeavour the conciliate a formidable power than to pro- 
 voke a contest in which their own success must have 
 proved extremely doubtful. Influenced therefore by a 
 variety of motives, they are said,J towards the beginning 
 of the twelfth century, to have admitted Giselbert, or 
 Gilbert, the bishop of Limerick as legate from the Roman 
 pontiff. 
 
 » Bed. Hist., Lib. I., Cap. XXYII. ; Ling. Ant., p. 230. 
 
 t Usser. Syllog., p. T2. 
 
 J S. Bernard. Vit. Malach, 1693. 
 
296 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 No prelate could have possessed the legatine authority who 
 was better qualified to push forward the object of his mission 
 than this Ostman divine. He had become acquainted at 
 Rouen, with Anselm,* who succeeded Lanfranc, and having 
 imbibed the principles of that well-known ecclesiastic, he 
 soon proved himself to be the obsequious instrument of 
 the coui't of Rome. There is a small tract preserved by 
 Archbishop Usher, which was written by Giselbert for the 
 use of the Irish, and obviously designed to give them a 
 relish for the Romish hierarchy, as well as to instruct them 
 in the principles upon which it was constructed. This 
 production was accompanied by an allegorical drawing 
 formed of three arches. The highest was covered with 
 birds, representing the angels in heaven ; the middle, or 
 this world, was filled with men ; and the lowest, or infernal 
 region, was crowded with animals and reptiles, types of its 
 inhabitants. He likewise describes the Church under the 
 form of a pyramid. The base represents the laity, then 
 succeed monks and the lowest clerical orders ; their head is 
 the priest. Above him are bishops, archbishops, and pri- 
 mates ; and the pope is seated upon the apex, as indicative 
 of his supremacy over the whole. There is some ingenuity 
 in this design ; but perhaps, as he wanted to establish the 
 principles of the Roman hierarchy, it would have been 
 more expressive of what he intended had he inverted the 
 order of his materials, and placed the pontiff in the position 
 which he assigned to the laity, making him the basis or 
 foundation upon which the superstructure rested. 
 
 In the struggle which was carried on in England 
 
 * Usser. Syllof., p. 88. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 297 
 
 between the king and the archbishop of Canterbury about 
 the right of investitures, the Church having been ultimately 
 successful,* the Bishop of Limerick is said to have sent a 
 present of twenty-five pearls to Anselm as the champion 
 of their common order, and to have congratulated him 
 upon that criminal triumph which he had obtained over 
 his sovereign and the laws of his country. f Encouraged by 
 this token of the good will of such an influential prelate as 
 the Bishop of Limerick, and having his hopes excited by 
 the admission of a papal legate into Ireland, the English 
 primate in the following year addressed a letter to his 
 reverend fellow-bishops in Ireland, in which he exhorts 
 them to vigilance and severity in ecclesiastical discipline, 
 and tells them that if any disputes respecting the consecration 
 of bishops or other causes could not be settled canonically 
 among themselves, to have the matter brought before him 
 for decision. 
 
 This apparent want of humility and modesty, on the 
 part of the English archbishop, was not so culpable as 
 some might be disposed to imagine, since the prerogatives 
 of the Irish monarchy had been virtually and voluntarily 
 compromised, when Turlogh recommended to that prelate 
 a bishop for the new see of Dublin, J Nor had his son 
 Mortogh, who succeeded him, acted a more dignified and 
 independent part when he joined his nobility and clergy in 
 a similar line of conduct by sending Malchus to be con- 
 secrated at Canterbury. Embroiled not only in family 
 
 * Hume's Hist, of Bng., Chap. VI. 
 
 t A. D. 1094. ; Usser. Syllog. p. 88. ; Led. Ant., p. 435. 
 
 I See Harris at Donat. O^Haingley 
 
298 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 disputes, but in contentions with provincial kings, the 
 monarch hoped for assistancj from England, and therefore 
 felt disposed to conciliate every agent in that country that 
 he thought might be serviceable to his cause. Anselm, 
 who knew well how to t tke adv mtage of every circumstance 
 in his own favour, percJving that an opportunity now 
 presented itself for the augmentation of his power, was 
 resolved to embrace it with that adroitness which was 
 peculiir to his character; and for the purpose of accom- 
 plishing this object, he addressed two epistles to the 
 monarch, in which he applies the flattering appellation of 
 his "glorious son and most beloved in Ijod."* His com- 
 plaints respecting the uncanonical state of the Irish Church 
 were similar to those to which Lanfranc, his predecessor, 
 had I'ormerly given utterance ; and he advises Mortogh to 
 call a council in which ecclesiastical matters might undergo 
 the necessary revision and amendment. 
 
 In compliance with this expressed desire of the arch- 
 bishop, the Irish monarch, A. D. 1111, assembled a council 
 of the nobility and clergy at a place called Fiadh-iEngusa? 
 or iEngus's Grove, in Meath, where, according to the 
 Chronicon Scotorum^ fifty-eight bishops, three hundred 
 and seventeen priests, and sixty deacons, with several others 
 who filled the inferior offices of the church, assembled. As 
 this was the first instance that had ever occurred in which 
 a papal legate was permitted to preside over a council of 
 Irish bishops ; and as the monarch and chiefs of the land 
 were to be in attendance, the conflux of clergy and others 
 was probably the greater. 0'Halloran,,.who affects to think 
 
 » " Gloriose fili et in Deo carissime."— f/^sscr. Syllog, p. 95. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 299 
 
 that a reformation was greatly wanted, gives us a summary 
 of the supposed evils that prevailed in the country, which 
 this council was designed to correct; and as the more 
 impartial mode of exhibiting their real nature, we shall 
 make our statement in his own words :^ — 
 
 " First, it is certain," says he, " that bishops were 
 multiplied amongst us at the will of the metropolitan,! and 
 often without any fixed places of residence : secondly, 
 the power of nominating bishops to certain dioceses was 
 reserved to certain royal and noble families, in different 
 parts of the kingdom, and to them only : thirdly, though 
 the Church of Ireland was in exact conformity with that of 
 Eome, in the doctrines of faith,J and submitted to her 
 decisions in many instances of discipline, as in the tonsure, 
 the celebrating of Easter, &c., yet it does not appear that 
 the popes ever enjoyed any direct power or authority w4iat- 
 ever over that church. We have seen briefs and letters 
 directed to the Irish bishops ; but I cannot find that they 
 deemed themselves schismatics,§ when they thought fit to 
 
 * O'Hal., Vol. III., pp. 300, 301. 
 
 t There were no Metropolitans in the Irish Church before this 
 time ; and as we have already seen, by the decision of the coun- 
 cil of Cealc-hythe, the English had objected to the orders of the 
 Irish clergy on that ground. 
 
 t This is more than apocryphal. " The threb Chaptsrs" 
 were altogether doctrinal, and yet the Irish Church opposed most 
 strenuously the decisions of Rome on the doctrines which thej 
 contained. 
 
 § It is certain the Irish bishops did not consider themselves 
 schismatics when they refused to obey the Roman pontiff, 
 because they knew he had no scriptural or legitimate authority 
 over them. But what did the popes of those times think of their 
 conduct ? Did they consider them schismatics or not ? 
 
300 mSTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 refuse the decisions of Rome, as they did for more than two 
 centuries with respect to the feast of Easter : — fourthly, 
 in some instances^ bishops have been married men ; but'no 
 proofs whatever can be produced that the popes nominated 
 to bishoprics amongst us ; — and, fifthly, it appears evi- 
 dently, that the Irish bishops enjoyed no exclusive privileges 
 whatever ; though Columba formerly strongly contended for 
 the Church's being an asylum. On the contrary, the Irish 
 clergy were subject to temporal laws, and temporal taxa- 
 tions. They were obliged in person to attend the royal 
 standard ; and I take it for granted that as feudal lords, 
 they were obliged to bring a certain quota of troops into 
 the field also ; yet, with all this, in no part of the world 
 were the clergy more respected ; but to the exemplary lives 
 they led, they owed this. Synods and council they held 
 from time to time, to correct abuses in the church, but the 
 archbishop of Armagh constantly presided as patriarch, 
 and their decisions were, for near two centuries, received 
 in England, and, until the twelfth century in Scotland. "f 
 These matterg having all been settled in the council to 
 the entire satisfaction of the legate, and the number of 
 bishoprics in Ireland having been reduced to twenty- 
 eight, the council was dismissed. Two objects, it will be 
 perceived, were kept in view by those who had the manage' 
 
 * It would have been but fair to have stated that from the 
 days of St. Patrick the bishops and inferior clergy had never had 
 any vow of celibacy imposed upon them, and were generally 
 married men. 
 
 t "From this account," says O'Halloran, after making the 
 above statement, " it will appear, that reformations were wanting 
 in ecclesiastical discipline." — Hist.y Vol. IlL^p. 301. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 301 
 
 ment of the synod ; namely, that, the number of bishops 
 being diminished, the whole hierarchy might be rendered 
 more manageable by the pope, and his agents ; and that by 
 the reduction of the number of dioceses, and the consequent 
 augmentation of, episcopal revenues, the clergy might be 
 rendered more respectable. But to effect such an exten- 
 sive change in the economy of the Irish Church required 
 some time ; and the proceedings of this synodical assembly 
 were only the commencement of that work which was 
 ultimately accomplished. 
 
 The ancient Irish writers have given to the place at which 
 this council assembled three different names, and having 
 used them indiscriminately, some of the moderns, being 
 ignorant of the ancient topography of the country, have 
 supposed that there were three different councils called, 
 and held respectively at Fiadh-^E ngusa, Uisneach, and 
 Rath-Bresail. But every one acquainted with the early 
 topography of Ireland knows that Uisneach was a moun- 
 tain in the centre of Meath, on which the temple of Bel 
 stood in pagan times. This sacred edifice, as all druidical 
 houses were, was erected in the middle of a large grove, 
 called Fiadh-Aehgusa, and a fort adjoining it was named 
 Rath-Bresail ; so that these three names were applicable 
 to the same place. Their indiscriminate use has therefore 
 been the origin of that groundless supposition to which we 
 have referred.* 
 
 The activity of the Irish monarch in bringing about 
 these measures, which had now received the sanction of 
 about one-sixth of the national clergy, proceeded, no doubt, 
 
 * O'H^l., ut supra, p. 303, 
 
302 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 from a secret motive. Henry I, of England, having, on 
 the death of Willin.ra Rufus, usurped the throne, in the 
 absence of his elder brother Robert, a combination of 
 some of the principal nobility was formed against him in 
 favour of the latter. Amongst these were Robert, earl of 
 Shrewsbury and Arundel, and Arnulf de Montgomery, his 
 brother.^ Arnulf is said to have solicited Mortogh for his 
 daughter, and some assistance ; but though he obtained the 
 former, it is probable that the monarch had too much to 
 contend with at home to give him any aid in his perilous 
 enterprise. The failure, however, of the plan to place 
 Robert on the throne obliged Arnulf to seek an asylum at 
 the court of the Irish monarch ; and, in a letter to Anselm, 
 Mortogh thanks him for interceding for his son-in-law, 
 and adds, " be assured I will obey your commands." This 
 gave an impetus to Mortogh's zeal ; and as Anselm could 
 always improve most skilfully such a favourable oppor- 
 tunity of promoting his own purposes, it is probable that 
 he used his influence at this particular juncture to induce 
 the monarch to make those changes in ecclesiastical matters 
 which he wished to bring about in Ireland. 
 
 The clergy in the latter country, however, could not 
 altogether forbear from showing some dissatisfaction at the 
 subversion of their own independence as a national hier- 
 archy. They perceived that the church of their forefathers 
 had been basely maligned and misrepresented ;f that under 
 
 * Hume's Hist. Eng., Vol. I., Cap. VI. 
 
 t In g-eneral f-he discipline of the Irish Church had so little 
 correspondence with that of the Roman, "that it received several 
 hard names from the papal writers of the 12th century. Pope 
 Alexander and Cambrensis call it filthy ; Anselm and Gilbert, 
 schismaticu, , Bernard, barbarous^ and almost pagan.— Phelan's 
 Policy, ^c. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE BANISH INVASION. 303 
 
 the specious name of reform, their ancient discipline was 
 now about to be reduced to a mere nonentity; and that an 
 extensive change was now in progress in their ecclesiastical 
 polity by which they must shortly be placed, without any 
 appeal, under a foreign jurisdiction. It is therefore no 
 wonder that their jealousy should have been excited, and their 
 national spirit roused, by those measures which had been 
 adopted in the council so recently held for the purpose of 
 bringing about those changes. Awai*e of this feeling 
 which so generally prevailed, the clergy and burgesses of 
 Dublin sometime afterwards informed Anselm's successor 
 in the primacy of England, that the Bishops of Ireland, 
 and especially Celsus of Armagh, had evinced the greatest 
 indignation towards them, because they had shown a 
 desire to be under his spiritual jurisdiction, and had not 
 submitted to receive ordination from those prelates that 
 belonged to the national Church of Ireland.* Had this 
 laudable and patriotic spirit been roused in time, it might 
 have prevented much of the evil which ensued, but it was now 
 too late to attempt to oppose the tide which was settling in 
 so powerfully against them. The Irish primate, as he may 
 henceforward be called, was not himself much opposed to the 
 religion of Rome, nor had he any great objection to the 
 power and authority of the pope, but he was unwilling to 
 separate from his wife and children, — a measure which had 
 now become a sine qua non with the Romish party. 
 
 As soon as Malachy O'Morgair, who succeeded Celsus, 
 found himself in possession of his new dignity, he is 
 said to have solicited the archiepiscopal pall from Pope 
 
 *Usser. Sjllog , p. 100, 
 
304 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Innocent II.; but from prudential motives the pontiff 
 declined conferring this distinguished honour upon him at 
 that time.* He was well aware that the great body of the 
 Irish clergy were still tenacious of the independence of 
 their national church ; and until they should be sufficiently 
 prepared to acknowledge the plenitude of his authority, 
 the pall, so far from commanding respect, would probably 
 expose the wearer, and consequently the authority of the 
 donor, to insult and derision. Upon this ground alone it 
 is probable the pope refused to comply with Malachy's 
 request ; for it is obvious that the latter stood very high in 
 the favour and approbation of the court of Rome. 
 
 Notwithstanding Malachy was only three years in pos- 
 session of his see, having been compelled to relinquish it 
 to an hereditary claimant, he still continued to use every 
 exertion for advancing the papal cause in his native 
 country. Influenced and directed by St. Bernard, who 
 was afterwards his biographer, he introduced, about the 
 year 1140, the Cistercian order into Ireland, and founded 
 establishments for them at Newry, Mellifont, Bective, 
 Boyle, Baltinglas, Nenagh, and Cashel. Thus by, the 
 unwearied and persevering exertions of papal agents (the 
 princes of Ireland having lost much of the spirit and 
 power of their predecessors, and internal dissensions pre- 
 vailing throughout the nation), the ancient religious 
 system of the Irish people was gradually undermined ; and 
 encournged by these circumstanced, the Roman pontiff 
 thought proper in 1155, to send John Paparo, Cardinal 
 of St. Laurence in Damaso, into Ireland with legatine 
 
 * S. Bernard. Yit, Malach., Cap. XI. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 305 
 
 authority, for the purpose of settling the Irish hierarchy 
 upon a new and more permanent basis. 
 
 Immediately after the arrival of this foreign eccle- 
 siastic, a council was convened at Kells,* in which Chris- 
 tian, Bishop of Lismore, presided; — a man who had 
 received his education under the tuition of St. Bernard at 
 Clairvaux, and who was consequently inclined to promote 
 the power and influence of the pontiff with all the energie^ 
 he was capable of commanding. Nor was it without an 
 object worthy of the papal cause that the cardinal had been 
 sent on this mission, armed with legatine authority. The 
 power of the pope was at this time unlimited in other 
 countries, and the existence of a church in any part of 
 Europe that would not yield impUcit obedience to his 
 commands must have been highly offensive to a prelate 
 whose claims had become so unlimited in their extent. To 
 prepare the way, therefore, for the unreserved submission 
 of the Irish Church to the authority of the pope ; to new- 
 model her hierarchy so as to make it more manageable by 
 papal agents ; and to lay the foundation of a revenue in 
 future which was expected to flow into the Roman treasury, 
 were the principal objects of Paparo's mission. It was 
 impossible, however, to accomplish any of these designs 
 unless an extensive change could be effected in the consti- 
 tution of the Church in Ireland ; but a step having been 
 taken already in this direction, by the reduction made in 
 the number of the Irish bishoprics, the cardinal, in order 
 
 * The names of the prelates who were present at this assembly 
 are given by both Ware and Keating, but it is highly probable 
 that the list is incorrect, if not an absolute forgery, 
 
306 HISTOBY OF IRELAND. 
 
 to compass Hs ends with the greater facility, bestowed four 
 archiepiscopal palls upon the bishops of Armagh, Dublin, 
 Cashel, and Tuam ; and these, together with the bulls for 
 the other bishops, were the means of raising a considerable 
 sum for recruiting his resources. He is also said to have 
 established the payment of tithes,* and to have endeav- 
 oured to extirpate simony, than which no vice had been 
 more prevalent in Europe during the middle ages.f It 
 was usual for the great lords, who had erected sees and 
 endowed them out of their own estates, to bequeath them 
 to their wives and children, or to dispose of them publicly 
 to the highest bidder. This traffic however was almost 
 wholly unknown amongst the Irish in the earlier stages of 
 their ecclesiastical history. Bad as the system of hereditary 
 succession was, it proved while it existed a powerful pre- 
 servative from the evils of simony : for those Irish lords 
 who had now embraced the Romish party and adopted their 
 measures, found that by the change they had made, a more 
 extensive market was opened for the sale of ecclesiastical 
 livings than that which they had enjoyed when the posses- 
 sion of the see was confined to their own sept or clan. 
 
 By the depredations ^f the Danes, and a variety of other 
 untoward circumstances, the sources of learning and in- 
 formation had been long since almost totally destroyed in 
 Ireland ; and, as a necessary consequence, ignorance, 
 superstition, and immorality, began to take the place of 
 
 * For the origin of tithes, and whether they should be con- 
 sidered of divine right, see Father Paul's treatise of Eccles. 
 and Bene/. Rev., Cap. XI. and XXI. They had not been establish" 
 ed in Ireland before this time. 
 
 t See Mosh. Eccles. Hist., Cent. XI. 
 
THE CHURCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 307 
 
 true religion amongst a large proportion of the inhabitants 
 of the country. Uniting the vices of their ancestors with 
 those of their bloodthirsty invaders, they became, during 
 the tenth and eleventh centuries, a comparatively degraded 
 and degenerate race. Many of the people who had either 
 retained or revived some of the superstious rites of their 
 pagan ancestors, and who had only transferred the tute- 
 lage of sacred wells, fountains, and groves from the imagi- 
 nary deities to whom they had been originally dedicated, to 
 some patron saint, either of foreign or native extraction, 
 were now sunk in ignorance and superstition : and it 
 was an easy matter, under these circumstances, to impose 
 upon their simplicity and to fetter their minds with those 
 terrors which the dreams of religious enthusiasts were 
 calculated to inspire. 
 
 In this process of religious deterioration, the Irish were 
 helped forward to a considerable degree by the cunning 
 ingenuity and unscrupulous tutelage of some of the English 
 monks. An impious fiction was invented about this time in 
 order to work upon the hopes and the fears of the credulous 
 multitude. In 1153, the very year after the meeting of 
 the council of Kells, Mat. Paris relates the visions of Owen, 
 an Irish soldier, which the latter saw in St. Patrick's Purga- 
 tory, on an island in Lough Derg ; — a place that is still 
 frequented by a great number of pilgrims, who fancy that 
 by the observance of a round of performances prescribed 
 at that station, they can purify themselves from all the 
 defilements of sin, and purchase a good reward in the life 
 that is to come. 
 
 Lough Derg lies in the southern part of the country of 
 Donegal, near the borders of Fermanagh and Tyrone, and 
 
308 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 is surrounded on every side by bleak,barren hills, covered with 
 heath and almost entirely destitute of any human habita- 
 tion.* Its locality was well calculated to work upon the 
 imagination of a credulous and simple-hearted people ; and 
 the story of the Irish soldier was swallowed with avidity by 
 Henry, a Cistertian monk, and embellished with all the 
 ingenuity that he was capable of displaying. " Christ," says 
 he, " appeared to St. Patrick, and, leading him to a desert 
 place, showed him a deep hole, and told him whoever re- 
 pented and was armed with true faith, and, entering that pit, 
 continued there a night and day, should be purged of all his 
 sins ; and also during his abode there, should not only see the 
 pains of the damned but the joys of the blessed." It is 
 added that St. Patrick immediately built a church on the 
 spot, and placed therein regular canons of St Austin. f 
 
 Notwithstanding a large accession had been made to the 
 ranks of the papacy by the circumstances to which we 
 have adverted, and more especially by those changes which 
 had attended the mission of Paparo, yet the Roman pontiff 
 began to think that his success in the complete subjugation 
 of the Irish church was still highly problematical ; and 
 consequently he deemed it prudent to entrust the manage- 
 ment of this affair to a more potent as well as an equally 
 
 * For an interesting account of this ancient seat of :i foolish 
 and degrading superstition, the reader is referred to Hardy's 
 Holy Wells of Ireland, pp. 1-26. 
 
 t Led. Ant., p. 446. The anachronism in it spoils the whole of 
 this story. Regular canons were unknown to St. Patrick, as 
 they had no existence in any part of the church before the tenth 
 Century. — See Spanheim, Tom. 11., p. 492; Mosh. Cent. XI. 
 
THE CHtRCH AFTER THE DANISH INVASION. 30^ 
 
 interested agent. He therefore issued in the year 1155, a 
 bull, in which, after claiming the sovereignty of the island, 
 he bestowed Ireland on Henry II. of England, that he 
 might extend the borders of the church and of religion, 
 extirpate vice, and reform evil manners, provided he should 
 pay yearly to St. Peter a penny for each house, and preserve 
 the rights of churches. The consequences, however, of this 
 donation, and all the calamities which ensued to the Irish 
 people, may be best learned from the authenticated details 
 of the subsequent part of this history. 
 
CHAPTER XY. 
 Invasion of Ireland by English Adventurers. 
 
 The death of Mortogh and the powerful influence which 
 Roderic O'Connor had already obtained over the different 
 states of the nation, gave him great facility in assuming 
 the sovereignty and in having his title acknowledged 
 almost universally throughout the kingdom. The Princes 
 and Chieftains were assembled at Dublin, and though there 
 was much insincerity in the part which they took upon this 
 occasion, they appeared unanimous in the election of 
 Roderic ;* and he was accordingly acknowledged in the most 
 solemn manner as the supreme rule of the whole island. 
 
 But this Prince soon found, notwithstanding his power 
 in his own province, the interest of his family, and the repu- 
 tation which he had acquired in arms, that such a recog- 
 nition, when it was rather extorted from the factious state 
 of divided provinces than won from the affections of a loyal 
 and devoted people, was but a feeble security to the per- 
 manence of his administration. From the time of the battle 
 of Clontarf and the death of the renowned monarch that 
 fell upon thM occasion, the nation had been making rapid 
 strides towards its own destruction ; and when Roderic suc- 
 ceeded to the monarchy, the measure of its iniquity was 
 nearly full. Notwithstanding the unanimity with which 
 he seemed to be elected, he had reason, from his own expe- 
 
 ♦ (O'Con. Dis. 259.) 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 811 
 
 rience, to suspect the facility with which it was done ; and, 
 at the head of his troops, he made a tour through the 
 greater part of the island, receiving hostages from the several 
 princes, and making presents in return, according to the 
 custom observed upon such occcasions. It was not long, 
 however, before several of them revolted, and those who, 
 a little before, had been emulous in making professions 
 of loyalty to the new monarch, soon laid him under 
 the necessity of chastising them for their seditious 
 conduct, and extorting from them that submission which 
 they were otherwise unwilling- to yield to his authority. 
 
 1167. Whilst Roderic was engaged in making preparations 
 for the complete subjugation of the territories of Tyrone 
 under the Hy-Niall princes, a circumstance occurred which 
 retarded the accomplishment of this object,and laid the foun- 
 dation for that extraordinary revolution which followed, 
 and which for a long period proved so fatal to the Irish 
 nation. Dermod Mac Murchad, the provincial dynast of 
 Leinster, had long conceived a violent affection for Dear- 
 bhargil, daughter to the King of Meath ; and, though she 
 had been married to Tighernan O'Ruarch, prince of Breffny, 
 his passion had not been cooled nor put under that restraint 
 which such circumstances would demand. The lovers 
 therefore contrived to carry on a clandestine correspondence 
 with each other ; and in the absence of O'Ruarch, who, 
 being obliged to visit a distant part of his territory, had 
 left his wife secure, as he thought, in an island surrounded 
 by a bay, Dermod, at the lady's request, entered Breffny, 
 seized upon her person, and had her conveyed to Ferns, 
 
 ♦ O'Hal. vol. m. p. 328-9. 
 
312 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the capital of Hy-Kinselagh.^ This outrage committed in 
 so flagrant a manner against a prince who had been most 
 devoted to the interest of O'Connor, could not fail to excite 
 just indignation in the mind of the monarch when he heard 
 it ; but, if this feeling had been wanting on Roderic's part, 
 the following letter addressed to him by the prince of BreiFny 
 would, no doubt, have contributed to awaken him to a sense 
 of his duty :— 
 
 " O'Ruarch to Roderic the Monarch, health : 
 
 '' Though I am sensible, most illustrious prince, that 
 human adversities should be always supported with firmness 
 and equanimity,and that a virtuous man ought not to distress 
 or afflict himself on account of the levity and inconstancy 
 of an imprudent female, yet, as this most horrible crime 
 (of which I am fully satisfied) must have reached your 
 ears, before the receipt of any letter, and as it is a crime 
 hitherto so unheard of, as far as I can recollect, as never 
 to have been attempted against any Irish king — severity 
 impels me to seek justice, whilst charity admonishes me 
 to forgive the injury. If you consider only the dishonour ; 
 this I confess is mine alone : if you reflect on the cause ; it 
 is common to us both ! For what confidence can we place 
 in our subjects, who are bound unto us by loyal authority, 
 if this lascivious adulterer, or rather destroyer of chastity, 
 shall escape unpunished, after the commission of a crime so 
 flagitious. The outrages of princes so publicly and so 
 notoriously committed, if not corrected, become precedents 
 of pernicious example to the people. In a word, you are 
 
 * Cambrens., p. 760. 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 318 
 
 thorouglily convinced of my affection and attachment to 
 you. You behold me wounded with the shafts of fortune 
 affected by numberless inconveniences, and sorely distressed 
 with the greatest afflictions ! It only remains for me to 
 request, as I am entirely devoted to you, that you will not 
 only with your counsels assist, but with your arms revenge 
 those injuries which torment and distract me. This, when 
 you will, and as you will, I not only ask but earnestly beg 
 at your hands. Farewell." 
 
 As soon as the monarch received this letter, he resolved 
 upon giving assistance to the injured prince ; and imme- 
 diately dispatched a body of troops, which, together with his 
 own forces and those of Meath and Ossory, enabled him to 
 march to Dermod's residence, and to make sucji a success- 
 ful attack upon him, as to oblige him to make his e&capeto 
 Bristol with about sixty of his followers. The castle of 
 Ferns soon surrendered; for Dermod, before his escape, 
 had been deserted by the nobility of Leinster, the military, 
 and even by his own principal favourites and dependents. 
 Hy-Kinselagh was therefore divided between the prince of 
 Ossory, and Murcha, a chieftain of lihe same family with 
 the exiled provincial; and seventeen hostages were brought 
 to the monarch as security for the future good behaviour 
 of his former subjects.* 
 
 When the demands of public justice and national honour 
 had been thus far complied with, lioderic prepared to ex- 
 ecute his previously contemplated enterprise against the 
 house of Tyrone. At the head of a well-appointed army, in 
 
 * O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 331-2.) 
 U 
 
314 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 conjunction with a numerous fleet which scoured the seas 
 and cut off supplies from North Britain, he marched into 
 Ulster, and compelled the Hy-Niall chieftain to pay him 
 homage, and to deliver hostages into his hands for his future 
 loyalty and good behaviour. After his return to Connaught, 
 and in the same year, he assembled the states of Leath-Cuin, 
 at Athboy, in the county of Meath, where many wholesome 
 laws were made, as well for the government of the church 
 as the slate. (This assembly, which was numerously atten- 
 ded, was the last of the kind that was ever held by 
 the Irish monarchs. How long it continued we are not 
 informed ; but besides Roderic himself and 13,000 horse, it 
 was honoured with the presence of O'Malachy, king of 
 Meath, O'Ruark and O'Reily, princes of the two Breffnys, 
 O'Dunlevy, King of Ulida, O'Felan, prince of the Deasies, 
 and many other chieftains, together with the archbishops 
 of Armagh, Dublin, and Tuam, and a great number of 
 bishops, abbots, and inferior clergy.) 
 
 1168. The crazy state of the government, notwithstanding 
 the splendid display of regal pomp made at this meeting, was 
 at this time sufficiently apparent in the disorders and out- 
 rages which occurred in different parts of the kingdom. 
 In the beginning of the following year, Murrogh O'Brien, 
 king of Thomond, was killed, by his own cousin Connor, or 
 by the people of Desmond, and was succeeded by his brother 
 Domhnal, in the throne of North Munster. A short time 
 after this outrage the people of Dealbhna, attacked O'Fen- 
 nelan, their natural lord ; and, together with a number of 
 his adherents, he fell by their hands. Several other acts 
 of violence proclaimed that the inhabitants of this country 
 were ripe for a visitation of Providence; and, had that change 
 
IHE ENGLISH INVASION. 315 
 
 which followed conferred upon them the oenefits of any reg- 
 ular system of government, it ought to have been viewed 
 as a blessing rather than as a calamity, by the candid his- 
 torian who would attempt to record the events of this time. 
 But, whilst domestic feuds and intestine animosities, which 
 had already dislocated the bands of society, were arming 
 one party against another, events were preparing the way, 
 in another country, for that change in the government of 
 Ireland, which, for ages afterwards, was attended with the 
 most deplorable consequences, but which Divine Providence 
 no doubt intended for the ultimate happiness and true 
 interest of the people of that island. 
 
 Henry Plantagenet, the first of the Anjou race that 
 filled the English throne, and a prince of such unbounded 
 ambition that he considered the whole world little enough 
 for the dominion of one sovereign, had long contemplated 
 the extension of his power over Ireland and Scotland ; 
 but circumstances had hitherto been unfavourable for 
 accomplishing his design. The crazy state of the Irish 
 constitution, and the continual disorders which had so 
 long prevailed amongst the people, exposed the country to 
 the attempts of any ambitious potentate ; but Henry's pre- 
 decessors had been incapacitated by their own domestic 
 weakness to avail themselves of the advantage which these 
 circumstances presented to their attention. During the 
 existence of the Anglo-Saxon heptarchy, the same causes 
 which would have exposed Ireland to a successful invasion 
 from the other side of the channel, operated as powerfully 
 in England itself ; and scarcely were these petty states 
 united in the ninth century under the dominion ot 
 Egbert, when the Scandinavian adventurers, the common 
 
316 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 scourge of the west of Europe, began to infest the coasts 
 of England, and to oblige the inhabitants to take measures 
 for their own defence, rather than to seek for advantages 
 against their Hibernian neighbours. Scarcely had these 
 northern freebooters ceased from their predatory wars, and 
 coalesced with the natives of the country, when England 
 was again reduced to a state of deplorable slavery by a new 
 host of adventurers, more advanced indeed in the arts of 
 life, and under a less irregular government, but hardly less 
 cruel and insolent than its former invaders. 
 
 Harassed, in common with other countries, by the 
 desolating incursions of the northern pirates, the French 
 were obliged, in 911, to cede the provinces of Neustria and 
 Bretagne to Kollo, one of their leaders, whose followers, 
 called by the French Normans^ settled in the country, 
 and, from its new inhabitants, Neustria received the name 
 of Normandy. William, surnamed the Bastard, who, about 
 a century and a half after this settlement, had inherited 
 the ducal diadem of Normandy, demanded, on the decease 
 of Edward the Confessor, the crown of England, in conse- 
 quence of a will which, he averred, had been made in his 
 favour by that weak prince ; but his claim was rejected, 
 and with the concurrence of the people of England, Harold, 
 a great and warlike nobleman, ascended the throne. 
 William, however, being resolved that his claim should not 
 be set aside with so much facility, assembled an army of 
 resolute adventurers, invaded England in 1066, and at the 
 famous battle of Hastings, decided the fate of that kingdom 
 by the death of his rival, and the subsequent maltreatment 
 of the unfortunate inhabitants. To this prince, now sur- 
 named the Conqueror, his second son, William Rufus, 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 317 
 
 succeeded ; and to him, by usurpation, his younger brother 
 Henry, to the exclusion of Robert, the eldest son of the 
 conqueror ; to Henry, his nephew Stephen, usurper of the 
 throne from Henry's daughter, Matilda; and to Stephen, 
 in the year 1154, Henry the Second, the son of Matilda, 
 by Geoflfrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou. 
 
 This prince, whose designs against Ireland had been 
 long in contemplation, found several obstacles in his way, 
 arising from a combination of circumstances over which, 
 notwithstanding his great abilities, he had little control. 
 However, as the injustice of his cause was not amongst the 
 number, by the assistance of John of Salisbury, an intrig- 
 uing ecclesiastic, he found means of overcoming every 
 diflSculty ; and an alliance with the court of Rome, from a 
 pretended zeal for religion, and a real, though latent, 
 design of violating all its laws, was agreed upon, in order 
 to give this zeal some colour, even in that age, dark and 
 ignorant as it was.* This alliance with a power which he 
 hated, was mortifying to all the feeling of the English 
 monarch, but he felt it was necessary towards the accom- 
 plishment of his wishes ; and, it is probable, he secretly 
 resolved to overreach the Roman court, if possible, in her 
 own lucrative bargain. To Adrian IV, therefore, his 
 application was made ; and that pontiflf, besides being an 
 Englishman and amicable to the king, was glad of an 
 opportunity of augmenting the papal power, and more fully 
 reducing the Irish to the authority of a church, of which 
 they had been long the strenuous and successful opponents. 
 A bull was accordingly issued by his holiness in favour of 
 
 * O'Con. Dissert, p. 261. 
 
318 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the English monarch, a ring was presented to him in token 
 of his investiture as rightful sovereign of the Irish, and 
 Henry was commissioned, like another Joshua, to enter 
 Ireland in a hostile manner, and to put the inhabitants to 
 the sword for the good of religion and the reformation of 
 manners. But whilst the eradication of irreligion and 
 immorality was made the plea for this invasion, a stipula- 
 tion was required from the king on the part of his holiness, 
 for the annual payment of one penny from every house in 
 the island to the pope, as the successor of St. Peter ; which 
 money was denominated Peter's pence.* 
 
 Notwithstanding this bull was issued in the year 1156, 
 the insurrections and contested claims in his French prov- 
 inces, the unsettled state of aflFairs in England, and, above 
 all, his protracted dispute with Thomas a Becket, prevented 
 the king from setting about the prosecution of his extra- 
 ordinary mission ; and it was not until subsequent occur- 
 rences gave him an opportunity, that he set about reducing 
 to practice a matter to which he had been so long directing 
 his attention. When Dermod Mac Murchad had been 
 obliged to fly from his nature country for the enormity of 
 his offences, he had taken refuge in Bristol; and, after 
 remaining some time in that city, he proceeded to Guienne, 
 where Henry then was, to crave his assistance in restoring 
 him to his principality ; and offered, on that event, to hold 
 his kingdom in vassalage under the crown of England. 
 The English monarch, whose views had been already turned 
 towards making acquisitions in Ireland, listened to his 
 
 » Vide Mat. Paris, p. 61. Spelman's Concilia, Vol. XL, p. 51. 
 Cambrens., ut supra. 
 
THE BNOLISH USTVASION. 319 
 
 statement with considerable courtesy ; but being at tbat 
 time embarrassed by the insurrections of his French subjects, 
 as well as by his disputes with the clergy, he declined for the 
 present embarking in the enterprise, and gave Dermod no 
 further assistance than a letter of credence addressed to 
 all his subjects, by which he empowered them to aid the 
 king of Leinster in the recovery of his dominions.* 
 
 Elated by his favourable reception, Dermod returned to 
 Bristol, and the letter of the English monarch was frequently 
 read in that and the adjoining cities accompanied with the 
 sound of a trumpet. But notwithstanding his magnificent 
 promises, lavished on those who should enlist under his 
 banners, and assist the friend and vassal of their sovereign, 
 his efforts were attended with but little success. Having 
 therefore spent a month at Bristol without being able to 
 procure any assistance, Dermot was induced by the situa- 
 tion of affairs in South Wales to pay his court to some of 
 the Norman chieftains in that country, hoping to engage 
 them in his desperate enterprise. 
 
 Wales, to which the ancient Britons had retired from 
 the fury of their Saxon oppressors, was, about the end of 
 the sixth century, under the divided government of six 
 princes, independent of each other, but acknowledging the 
 supremacy of one of their number residing in North Wales. 
 In process of time, however, the whole principality became 
 united under one sovereign in the person of Roderic, sur- 
 named the Great.f This prince, who consented to pay a 
 regular tribute to the king of England, divided his 
 
 * Cambr., p. 760. 
 t Gard., Vol. I., p. 11. 
 
320 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 dominions into three principalities, which were inherited 
 by his three sons. Subsequent divisions, with the civil 
 commotions attendantupon them, gave an advantage to the 
 kings of England ; and, in 1063, the Welsh prince was 
 reduced to a temporary vassalage, by Harold, who then 
 commanded the forces of Edward the Confessor. More 
 permanent inroads were afterwards made in the reign 
 of William Kufus, when several of the Norman nobles 
 obtained possessions in Wales, and acted with almost regal 
 authority, under the title of the Lords of the Marches. . 
 In the beginning of the 12th century, a colony of Flemings 
 had also been planted in the county of Pembroke, as an 
 additional security to the English interest in that country. 
 But, notwithstanding all these inroads made by the English 
 upon the Welsh territories, the inhabitants of Wales had 
 never been completely a conquered people. Unable to 
 resist their more powerful neighbours, they sometimes sub- 
 mitted to pay tribute to the crown of England ; but, when- 
 ever they found themselves in a condition to make any 
 successful resistance, they did n,ot scruple to take up arms 
 in their own defence, and were sometimes able even to 
 storm the Anglo-Norman castles, and to make ruinous incur- 
 sions into the adjoining counties. The princes of North 
 Wales continued to govern their native subjects, and, 
 though generally obliged to acknowledge the supremacy of 
 the kings of England, they kept their own courts, and 
 acted as independent sovereigns in their own dominions. 
 
 About the time of Dermod's expulsion from Ireland, 
 and his application for assistance to the English monarch, 
 a revolt was in contemplation against Henry's authority 
 in South Wales j and Rice ap Griffith, a chieftain who 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 321 
 
 commanded in the country about Pembroke, had impris- 
 oned Robert Fitz-Stephen.* the governor of Cardigan, 
 because he refused to join them in their intended revolt. 
 Amongst those who were prepared to engage in any bold 
 and hazardous undertaking, either at home or abroad, was 
 Richard, earl of Strigul, commonly called Strongbow, upon 
 account of his feats of archery ; an influential young noble- 
 man of dissipated manners and desperate fortune. To this 
 chieftain, who was of the illustrious house of Clare, Der- 
 mod applied for assistance ; and even went so far at last 
 as to promise him his daughter Eva in marriage, and the 
 reversion of his kingdom after his death, if by his means 
 and the aid of his associates he should be restored to his 
 dominions.f Though Strongbow treated the proposals of 
 the Irish prince with apparent coldness at first, so tempt- 
 ing an offer made to a young nobleman who had impaired 
 his fortune by expensive pleasures, was not to be resisted ; 
 and the Welshman at length entered deeply into all the 
 schemes of the expatriated prince. A treaty was accord- 
 ingly signed between them, and ratified by a solemn oath 
 taken by both parties. But whatever right Dermod might 
 have had to give his daughter in marriage to Strongbow, 
 
 * " Very few of my readers can require to be informed, that 
 the syllable Fitz, prefixed to the names of several South- 
 British chieftains famous in Irish history, is a term of Norman 
 French, corrupted from the Latin word filius, and signifiying 
 son, as Fitzstephen implies the son of Stephen. Among the 
 Welsh the particle ap, derived by the idiomatic pronunciation 
 of that people from the Latin ab, hag been applied to a similar 
 use." Gard.j Vol. L, p. 77. 
 
 fCambrens., p. 761, 
 
322 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 his grant of his dominions after his death, was, according 
 to the laws of Ireland, a mere nullity, since hereditary 
 succession was not observed, the right of election being 
 vested in the chiefs of the country, and none could be put 
 in nomination for the crown of Leinster but a prince of 
 the family of Cathair More. 
 
 By Strongbow's advice, Dermod next waited on Rice 
 ap Griffith, in order to procure the enlargement of Fitz- 
 stephen, whom the former considered a fit person to aid 
 in the intended enterprise ; and through the mediation of 
 the bishop of St. David's, he obtained liberty from that 
 chieftain for his prisoner to transport himself, with his 
 friends and followers, to Ireland for the purpose of 
 engaging in the service of the king of Leinster. To this 
 man, and his maternal brother, Maurice Fitzgerald, he 
 promised to give up the town of Wexford with two can- 
 treds* of land adjoining, on condition of their support and 
 assistance. Having thus far succeeded in his negociations 
 and received solemn promises from Fitz-stephen and 
 Fitzgerald of their sailing to his assistance in the ensuing 
 spring, Dermod set sail for Ireland, with his own imme- 
 diate followers and as many volunteers as he could collect on 
 this occasion. Having landed privately on the Irish coast. 
 
 * A cantred, century, or hundred, as it was called in England, 
 was not a determinate measure of land, but varied in different 
 places according to circumstances. According to the division 
 afterwards made of Ireland, "Munster counted 70 cantreds, 
 Leinster 31, Connaught 30, Ulster 35, and Meath 18. Each 
 cantred had 30 townlands, every townland could feed 300 cows, 
 and each townland contained 8 carucates or plough-lands." 
 Led., p. 216. 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 323 
 
 he continued to pass unobserved to a monastery which he 
 had founded at Ferns, where he remained some time in 
 concealment, waiting the arrival of his transmarine allies. 
 From this place of seclusion he gave notice to some of his 
 most faithful adherents, that he had arrived with some 
 forces, which were soon to be followed by a more considerable 
 reinforcement, and he conjured them to repair immediately 
 to his standard.* 
 
 Hated as he was by his subjects in general, he neverthe- 
 less mustered as many friends as enabled him to seize that 
 part of his former dominions, known by the name of 
 Hy-Kinselagh, but Koderic apprised of this audacious 
 attempt, suddenly collecting some forces, with his faithful 
 associate O'Ruark, marched into that country to reduce 
 the bold and refractory prince.f Diffident of his own 
 subjects, and knowing he was unable to cope with such 
 an enemy, Dermod, after some slight skirmishing with his 
 assailants, in order to gain time, had recourse to negocia- 
 tion, and made the most abject offers of submission to 
 the monarch. He conjured him to interpose his good 
 offices, to bring about a reconciliation between him and 
 O'Ruark, whom he confessed he had greatly injured. 
 That he was still making expiations for the horrid crime 
 he had committed, as the unhappy lady had long since 
 sought an asylum amongst the holy nuns of St. Bridget at 
 Kildare, and hoped that he would not drive an unfor- 
 tunate prince to indigence and despair, but allow him some 
 small portion of the possessions of his ancestors to support 
 
 * Cambrens., ut supra, p. 761. 
 t Leland, B. I., Cap. I. 
 
324 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the remains of a miserable life."* Roderic, whose atten- 
 tion was called by more pressing circumstances to other 
 parts of his dominions, listened to his proposals favourably, 
 accepted his insidious submission, and, upon paying 100 
 ounces of pure gold to O'Ruark, as an eric for the injury 
 he had done him, and delivering up seven hostages to the 
 monarch for the fulfilment of his promises, Dermod was 
 permitted to retain ten cantreds of the lands of Hy- 
 Kinselagh, in vassalage under the monarch himself 
 
 1169. Time, as well as a solid settlement at home, having 
 been thus artfully gained, Dermod despatched Maurice 
 0' Regan, his confidential secretary, into Wales, to remind 
 his allies of their solemn engagements, to hasten their 
 preparations, and to inform them that he was ready to 
 receive them as soon as they could come to his assistance. 
 Accordingly in the month of May, Fitzstephen, Fitzgerald, 
 Barry, Hervey, and several other adventurers, landed near 
 Wexford, with thirty knights, sixty esquires, and three 
 hundred archers, who were next day joined by Maurice 
 de Prendergast, at the head of ten knights and two 
 hundred archers. 
 
 On the news of their arrival, numbers who had aban- 
 doned the party of the king of Leinster, returned to his 
 standard ; and that prince, whom neither oaths nor 
 treaties could bind, hastened to join his allies as soon as he 
 received the first intimation of their landing.f Under his 
 natural son Donald, a youth of distinguished valour, he 
 
 * O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 336. 
 
 t Their arrival was notified to him by letters dated May 11, 
 1169. See O'Hal. 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 325 
 
 sent forward five hundred men, whom he followed himself 
 at the head of his infantry. The first enterprise planned, 
 after the meeting of the two parties, was an attack upon 
 the town of Wexford, about twelve miles distant from the 
 place of debarkation. The contempt with which the 
 garrison, composed of Irish and Danes, had been accus- 
 tomed to treat the influence which Dermod possessed in 
 raising a force sufficient to take their toWn by storm, in- 
 duced them to think they were strong enough to disperse this 
 troop of invaders in the field ; and they accordingly 
 marched some distance in order to give them battle. But 
 when they saw an enemy quite different in number and 
 discipline from that which they had expected they very 
 prudently declined the engagement ; but, being resolved to 
 defend their city to the last extremity, they set fire to the 
 suburbs and adjacent villages, and retired within the walls. 
 Encouraged by this retreat of the Irish, the leaders of 
 the assailants instantly gave orders that a general assault 
 should be made on the town ; but they were opposed with 
 such determination by the garrison that they were obliged 
 to retire after having sustained the loss of some of the 
 bravest of their men. Regardless, however, of the dejec- 
 tion of spirits occasioned amongst his allies by this repulse, 
 and apprehensive that his followers might desert him and 
 return to their own country, Fitz-stephen instantly retired 
 to the sea, and set fire to all the ships in the harbour, in 
 order that his men might perceive that they had no alter- 
 native for the future but conquest or death. After an 
 inspiriting harangue, and the solemn ceremony of divine 
 service, he again advanced to the assault ; but for three 
 successive days his efforts were attended with no better 
 
326 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 success. At length the bishop and clergy of Wexford, the 
 only order of men in Ireland with whom Dermod had any 
 influence, persuaded the garrison to capitulate ; and after 
 much negociation between the two parties, the king of 
 Leinster consented to accept their proposals. They accor- 
 dingly renewed their oaths of fidelity to this prince, 
 entered into his service, and put into his hands four of their 
 principal burgesses as hostages for the faithful fulfilment 
 of the promises they had made. 
 
 As soon as Dermod had possessed himself of the town 
 of Wexford, according to his previous agreement, he made 
 over the lordship of the city and its domain to Fitz- 
 stephen and Fitz-gerald, though the latter had not arrived 
 yet to his assistance ; and on Hervey of Mountmorres, he 
 bestowed two districts on the coast between the towns of 
 Wexford and Waterford.* 
 
 The success of the allied forces in the reduction of the 
 town of Wexford greatly increased the reputation of the 
 king of Leinster ; and numbers of the Lagenians began 
 to resort to his standard, as the only means of saving 
 themselves from the effects of his resentment. Having 
 spent three weeks at Ferns, and received a considerable 
 
 * "From this donation made to Hervey is commonly supposed 
 to have originated the colonization of the Bargey and Forth 
 baronies, where dwells a people distinct from their neighbours, 
 particularly in a peculiar dialect of the Gothic language : but 
 these are probably in part the descendants of ancient Belgians, 
 known to the Roman geographers under the name of Menapii, 
 intermixed in after ages with some Danes, or Norwegians, and 
 on this occasion also with a great proportion of English colo- 
 nists, and Flemings from Pembrokeshure." Gard. Vol. I., p. 82, 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 327 
 
 augmentation to his army, he resolved to take vengeance 
 upon Mac-Gilla-Patrick, prince of Ossory, on whom part 
 of his territories had been bestowed by the monarch. 
 This chieftain had not only revolted from Dermod in his 
 distress and associated with his enemies, but had formerly 
 possessed himself of a son of the king of Leinster, as 
 a hostage, and conceiving some suspicions of him as hold- 
 ing an unlawful intercourse with his wife, seized him 
 in a fit of jealousy, and, with a cruelty not then peculiar to 
 Ireland, ordered his eyes to be put out.* The unhappy 
 youth expired under the operation ; and the father har- 
 boured the most violent and implacable resentment, which 
 he now resolved should burst forth with all its fury upon 
 the devoted head of the prince of Ossory. 
 
 Stimulated by the hope of plunder, and willing to 
 engage in any enterprise however nefarious or urgent, 
 Dermod's allies expressed their willingness to engage in 
 this expedition as soon as that prince had made the propo- 
 sal ; and, having collected all his forces, with a considerable 
 body from Wexford, he marched toward the territories of 
 the Ossorian dynast, but was obliged to encounter greater 
 difficulties than he had experienced in storming the town 
 of Wexford. The Ossorians, about 5,000 in number, 
 occupying a most advantageous position amid woods and 
 morasses, were able to repel the reiterated attacks of their 
 assailants ; and, after three days spent in constant skirmish- 
 ing, the troops of the king of Leinster found that their 
 utmost efforts were repeatedly foiled. Encouraged by 
 their success, and transported by the ardour of victory, the 
 
 * See Leland., B. I., Cap. I, 
 
328 HISTORY OF IKELAND. 
 
 Ossorians foolishly resolved to relinquish the place of 
 secui-ity which they had hitherto occupied, and to attack 
 the invaders in the open field ; but being much inferior in 
 number, they were soon obliged to give way, and Dermod 
 granted unbounded liberty to his troops, to burn, plunder, 
 and destroy the whole country without mercy. In the 
 slaughter which ensued upon the rout of the Ossorians, it 
 is said, that the Irish in the service of Dermod, brought 
 three hundred heads of the slaughtered Ossorians and pre- 
 sented them to their prince ; and that this royal barbarian, 
 when he recognized amongst the number, the head of 
 an inveterate enemy, seized the ghastly visage with his 
 teeth, and mangled it in a paroxysm of rage and malignity ! * 
 Satisfied with the present defeat of the Ossorians, and 
 with the devastations committed amongst them, Dermod 
 returned to Ferns without completing the conquest of that 
 territory which he had intended to subdue. Meanwhile 
 the success of the Lagenians and their allies became an 
 alarming aff"air to the monarch. He perceived, that should 
 Dermod be able to hold the kingdom of Leinster, without 
 doing homage to him for the tenure of it, his own power 
 as monarch of Ireland must thereby become very preca- 
 rious. Donald O'Brien also, who was king of Thomond 
 and Ormond, was son-in-law to Dermod; and Roderick 
 
 * This account is given by Cambrensis and seems to be too 
 horrid to gain credit or belief. " Surely," says Dr. Leland, " the 
 humane and generous Britons could not have been witnesses of 
 such an action !" But, though it is true that humanity and 
 generosity have always been distinguishing characteristics of 
 genuine Britons, yet the Irish adventurers were outcasts of 
 Britain, and complete strangers to either of these virtues. 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 329 
 
 began to dread his power and to suspect his fidelity. 
 Influenced by these considerations, though occupied 
 elsewhere with a multiplicity of business, he judged an 
 expedition, for the purpose of crushing the king of Leinster, 
 absolutely necessary; and accordingly summoned a 
 meeting of all his friends and tributaries at Tara, to take 
 their advice in the present crisis of Irish affairs.^ The 
 result of this conference was, that messengers were sent to 
 Fitz-stephen and his followers, to demand, " by what right 
 or authority they presumed to invade this land in a hostile 
 manner, or to display their banners in it ; and ordering 
 them to quit the country immediately, or to expect to be 
 treated as pirates and robbers, who had taken up arms 
 without the sanction of their lawful sovereign." The 
 monarch also offered to furnish them with the means of 
 transporting themselves to Wales; but the adventurers 
 found themselves in no situation to embrace so humane and 
 so generous a proposal. Fitz-stephen, their leader, had 
 been liberated from prison, on the condition of his quitting 
 his native country for ever ; and, it is probable, that most 
 of those who had embarked with him in his undertaking, 
 were not in a much more respectable situation. Being 
 therefore outcasts from society and reduced to a state of 
 the most desperate extremity, they chose rather to perse- 
 vere in their perilous enterprise in Ireland, and rejected 
 every offer that was made them to return to their native 
 land. 
 
 Meanwhile Roderic was making every preparation to give 
 effectual resistance to the invaders, in case of their refusal ; 
 
 * O'Con. Dissert, p. 264. 
 V 
 
330 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 and having assembled a great body of troops at the hill ol' 
 Tara, he marched with celerity towards the south. But,, 
 suspecting the fidelity of the northern chieftains, from; 
 their attachment to the Hy-Niail family, he was obliged to> 
 dismiss them and their followers, when he arrived at, 
 Dublin, pretending that the service was too insignificant to» 
 require the inconvenience of their longer detention.*- 
 The vast superiority, however, of his remaining forces,, 
 consisting of the troops of Connaught, BrefFny, Thomond,. 
 and some lords of Leinster with their followers, struck 
 terror into his enemies ; and Dermod's troops being unable 
 to encounter such a formidable force, retired from post to 
 post, until they reached the fastnesses of the country about 
 Ferns, which they strongly fortified, hoping to protract the 
 war until they should receive further assistance from their 
 friends in Wales. 
 
 Entrenched amidst morasses, precipices and woods, th& 
 king of Leinster waited the onset of the royal army withi 
 considerable coolness and perseverance. Roderic divided 
 his forces into different detachments, appointed the troops; 
 that were to attack the different posts, and those that were to 
 support them ; and addressing them in an animating speech, 
 he called upon them to march onwards to certain victory. 
 The critical conjuncture of political wisdom, as well as of 
 political safety, was now in his hands : but without improv- 
 ing the one, or giving the public any reasonable security 
 for the other, he yielded to the weak counsels of some of 
 the principal ecclesiastics of Leinster, and took hostages for 
 the future fidelity of Dermod ; a man whom no principle of 
 
 • Gard., Vol. I., p. 85. 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 331 
 
 religion, nor tie of nature, could bind, and who had dis- 
 turbed and tormented his country for thirty years together.* 
 By the treaty into which the two parties entered, Dermod 
 was to be acknowledged king of Leinster, and was to do 
 homage to the monarch for his territories, as holding them 
 in vassalage under him. He was to dismiss all the 
 foreigners, with proper remuneration for their services, and 
 to admit no more British adventurers into his country. The 
 stipulations of this treaty were all ratified by oath before 
 the great altar of the church of St. Maidag at Ferns ; and 
 Dermod delivered his son Art as a hostage into the hands 
 of the monarch, for the faithful performance of all his 
 engagements. 
 
 Conscious that he was universally detested by his own 
 people, and apprehensive of falling a sacrifice to their 
 resentment, Dermod willingly entered into this treaty, but 
 had no intention of faithfully observing its stipulations. 
 His principal object was to gain time ; and as soon as the 
 monarch had retired to his own domain, under various 
 pretences, he delayed the fulfilment of his engagements. 
 Encouraged, however, by the arrival of Maurice Fitzgerald, 
 at Wexford, with ten knights, thirty esquires, and one hund- 
 red archers, he resolved to take vengeance upon the citizens 
 of Dublin, who had treacherously murdered his father, and 
 had buried the carcase of a dog with his body, as a mark of 
 their hatred and contempt.f Dublin, at this time, was 
 under a chieftain who sometimes acknowledged and some- 
 times disclaimed allegiance to the king of Leinster : it 
 
 * O'Cou. Dis. 264, 
 
 f Cambrens., ut supra. Leland., B. I., Cap. I. 
 
332 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 formed a distinct state, and possessed a territory consisting 
 principally of what was called Fingal ; and as soon as 
 Dermod appeared before it, the citizens under the chieftain 
 Hesculph-Mac-Torcal, terrified by his approach, agreed to 
 give him hostages, and a considerable sum of money, which 
 was probably the primary object of this expedition. 
 
 The success of the Lagenians and their confederates upon 
 this occasion tended greatly to inflame the ambition of 
 Dermod : and he began to meditate schemes of assuming 
 the monarchy of the whole island. His son-in-law, Donald 
 O'Brien, king of Thomond, perceiving with pleasure the 
 errors which the monarch had committed, and hoping to 
 extend his power and that of his house, at Koderic's 
 expense, renounced his allegiance to the latter, arid entered 
 into a private treaty with Dermod, by which they engaged 
 to support each other.* Animated by this accession to his 
 power and influence, the king of Leinster, in order to 
 complete the subversion of Roderic's authority, and to 
 raise himself if possible to the sovereign throne, sent pres- 
 sing letters to Strongbow urging the performance of his 
 promises in the ensuing spring. Meanwhile Roderic, to 
 punish the king of Thomond for his rebellion, invaded his 
 territories ; but the latter, having received assistance from 
 his father-in-law under the command of Fitzstephen, was 
 enabled to make a stand against the invaders, so that the 
 monarch, called away by more pressing engagements, was 
 obliged to relinquish his enterprise for the present. 
 
 While Dermod and his party in Ireland were actively 
 engaged in strengthening themselves, Strongbow was using 
 
 * O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 344. 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 838 
 
 every exertion on tlie other side of the channel to raise as 
 considerable a force as he was able for his intended expedi- 
 tion. But, fearing to embark in an undertaking of such 
 moment without the particular license of his sovereign,- he 
 repaired to Henry to solicit this favour. Tired with his 
 importunities, and perhaps unwilling that any extensive 
 conquests should be made in Ireland except under his own 
 immediate command, the English monarch at length con- 
 temptuously answered, " that he might go as far as his feet 
 could carry him ; nay, if he could get the wings of Daedalus, 
 as far as he could fly." Strongbow, affecting to understand 
 this equivocal and insulting reply as the requested permis- 
 sion, returned home and made preparations for the Irish 
 expeditions ; sending before him Raymond Le Gros, with 
 ten knights and about one hundred archers, as his vanguard 
 ta announce to Dermod when he intended himself to land, 
 that he might be ready to support him. 
 
 A.D. 1171. This band of adventurers, in the month of 
 May 1171, landed about four miles from Waterford,* at a 
 place called by the old historians Dondonolf, and imme- 
 diately took possession of an old neglected fortress, which 
 they repaired, and then sallied out on a predatory expedi- 
 tion. Having collected a great number of horned cattle from 
 the adjoining district, they compelled the countrymen to 
 drive them before them ; but O'Felan, O'Kyan, and some 
 of the principal citizens of Waterford, being joined by the 
 neighbouring peasants, formed a tumultuary band of about 
 three thousand men, and rushed with disorderly precipita- 
 tion to retake the cattle and to punish the invaders. The 
 
 * Cambrens., p. 767. 
 
834 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Britons who at first despised such a mob of assailants, soon 
 perceived that they were in imminent danger ; and it was 
 with some difficulty that a part of the guard succeeded in 
 gaining the fortress and securing the cattle. The remainder 
 of the fugitives, being closely pressed by their pursuers, 
 were in 'a fair way of being cut off, when the gigantic 
 Raymond, with great resolution sallied forth and slew with 
 his own hand the leader of the hostile troops. During 
 the state of irresolution which ensued on the part of the 
 Irish, by the death of O'Ryan, Raymond, with great pres- 
 ence of mind, ordered the cattle to be driven against the 
 assailants, whilst his troops made an instant sally and 
 completed the disorder of their opponents. The wounded 
 beasts rushed with impetuosity through the midst of the 
 Irish, and all was instantly in confusion and dismay. 
 Raymond and his troops gave them no time to form or 
 rally. Some were slaughtered, others were drowned in the 
 sea, and seventy of the principal citizens were captured, 
 with whom the Britons marched back in triumph to their 
 fortress. This victory, however, was tarnished by a deed 
 of most deliberate and hardened cruelty. Raymond, it is 
 said, immediately called a council of war, to decide upon 
 the fate of the prisoners ; and it was resolved that they 
 should first have their legs broken, and then be precipitated 
 into the sea ; which was forthwith put into execution.'^ 
 The news of Strongbow's preparations having reached 
 
 * This cruelty, practised on the citizens of Waterford, was, 
 " either, according to Regan, in revenge for a friend of Raymond's 
 killed in the battle, or, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, at the 
 instigation of Hervey of Mountmorres, to strike terror into the 
 invaded people." Gordon, Vol. /., p. 89. 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASiON. 335 
 
 the king, that nobleman was surprised by a positive com- 
 mand from his sovereign, when he was just about to 
 embark his troops at Milford, to desist from his intended 
 enterprise, under the penalty of forfeiting his lands and 
 honours, as a rebel against his king, and to return to court 
 immediately to give an account of himself But this 
 adventurer had already gone too far, and the tenor of the 
 message itself seemed too menacing to abide its conse- 
 quences. Hoping, therefore, to evade or deprecate the resent- 
 ment of the king, he weighed anchor, and in a few hours 
 after, arrived in the bay of Waterford, on the 23rd of 
 August, at the head of two hundred knights and twelve 
 hundred archers. His arrival was attended by the king of 
 Leinster and his British associates with their respective 
 forces; and a council of war having been held, it was 
 resolved to make an immediate attack upon the city of 
 Waterford. Preparations were accordingly made to assault 
 it the next day, as their critical situation rendered promp- 
 titude and dispatch absolutely necessary. But being twice 
 repulsed by the intrepid bravery of the garrison, Raymond, 
 who commanded as general in the siege, became very 
 doubtful of the issue of the contest. Having, however, 
 carefully examined all the walls and approaches to the 
 town, he observed a house projecting beyond the wall in 
 the eastern angle, the beams of the floor of which were 
 lodged in the wall, and wooden posts fixed in the ground to 
 support this airy mansion. Silently in the night, he had these 
 supporters cut through, and, according to his anticipations, 
 the house fell down with a violent crash, and drew with it 
 such a portion of the wall as made a breach sufficiently 
 practicable. A body of troops, therefore, prepared for the 
 
336 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 purpose, rushed into the town with irresistible fury ; and, 
 traversing the walls in every direction, they slaughtered 
 indiscriminately all they could meet. Proceeding next to 
 the gates, they threw them open for the admission of their 
 companions. The city was soon one scene of carnage and 
 cruelty ; and the licentious soldiers plundered, without any 
 restraint, the inhabitants of the place. 
 
 Dead to every feeling of humanity, and regardless of 
 the miseries which he had brought upon his unhappy 
 countrymen, the relentless Dermod, as soon as the uproar 
 of indiscriminate slaughter had subsided, sent an express 
 to Ferns for his daughter Eva, had her stipulated nuptials 
 with Strongbow solemnized in the city of Waterford, 
 and the confederates marched immediately thence to 
 Dublin, in order to chastise a supposed or real defection of 
 its inhabitants. 
 
 Apprised of the movement of the enemy, the monarch 
 was obliged for a time to relinquish his design upon 
 Thomond, and to repair with precipitation to stop the 
 progress of the invaders. He caused all the passes and 
 defiles in the road towards Dublin to be fortified and 
 manned, and the road itself to be broken up in several 
 places, in order to retard the march of the hostile troops : 
 but the invaders, taking a less frequented route than 
 that which lay directly to the object of their expedition, 
 crossed the mountains of Glendalogh, got the start of the 
 royal army, and intrenched themselves near the walls of 
 Dublin, before their adversaries were aware of the progress 
 they had made. Defeated therefore in the object they had 
 in view, the different chiefs that accompanied the monarch, 
 demanded their dismissal, and returned home, leaving 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 337 
 
 Dublin, exposed to all the horrors of war and desolation.* 
 The citizens of Dublin, being previously aware that 
 this attack of the enemy was intended, were making pre- 
 parations for their own defence; but the chiefs of the 
 confederates, who had suffered considerably from the 
 obstinate valour of the inhabitants of Wexford and Water- 
 ford, wished to be in possession of Dublin upon easier 
 terms than that effusion, of blood which they now antici- 
 pated.f In the name of his master, the king of Leinster, 
 therefore, 0' Regan summoned the citizens to surrender, 
 and promised to preserve their immunities, and to pass a 
 general act of oblivion for all past offences. An accidental 
 fire, which had destroyed one of their principal gates, 
 rendered the citizens the more willing to embrace the 
 proposals of their besiegers ; and they sent a solemn depu- 
 tation conducted by their archbishop, Laurence O'Toole, 
 to enter into a treaty with the enemy. Numerous difficul- 
 ties, however, notwithstanding his former proposals, were 
 started by Dermod, in order to protract the negociation, 
 whilst Raymond Le Gros and Milo de. Cogan were carefully 
 examining the walls of the city to find out the most 
 likely place of assaulting it with success. Revenge being 
 the primary object which the king of Leinster had in view, 
 while he was amusing the deputies in the camp, and their 
 fellow citizens were impatiently waiting their return, the 
 two generals, pretending that the time for parley had 
 expired, led their troops to the lowest and least defensible 
 part of the walls, and effected an entrance before the 
 
 * Leland, B. I., Cap. 2. 
 t O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 349, 
 
B38 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 inhabitants were aware of the treachery which had been 
 practised upon them. The success of the besiegers was 
 soon followed by the most unrestrained and licentious 
 cruelty. The houses of the citizens, after having been 
 plundered of everything valuable, were set on fire, and 
 an indiscriminate slaughter of all the inhabitants ensued. 
 
 Whilst the city was thus one scene of blood and 
 desolation, and whilst matrons and virgins were being 
 violated in the presence of their expiring husbands and 
 fathers, Dermod and Strongbow entered in triumph, and 
 the latter was immediately invested with the lordship of 
 Dublin. Committing the charge of the town to De Cogan, 
 these two chieftains next marched into Meath ; and, with a 
 degree of cruelty to which it would be difficult to apply a 
 suitable epithet, burned, despoiled, and wasted the country 
 wherever they came. 
 
 Roderic, in the mean time, disabled by dissensions from 
 giving effectual resistance to this invasion, sent a message 
 to the king of Leinster, complaining of this breach of 
 treaty, and threatening the death of his son, who was then 
 held as a hostage by the monarch, if he did not imme- 
 diately withdraw his troops and make compensation to 
 O'Ruark for the devastations and murders committed in 
 the country. But to this message he received an answer of 
 defiance from Dermod, who, far from acknowledging him- 
 setf the liegeman of O'Connor, declared he would not lay 
 down his arms until he had subjugated all Ireland to his 
 authority. Roderic, enraged with the insolence of this 
 reply, took the only revenge which was then in his power, 
 and immediately beheaded three of his hostages, among 
 whom was young Art, the king of Leinster's own son, 
 
THE ENGLISH INVASION. 339 
 
 Alarmed by the success of an enemy completely devoid 
 of every principle of honour or humanity, a general 
 council of the clergy was convened at Armagh to deliberate 
 upon the state of public affairs ; and, after a solemn 
 deliberation, they came to the conclusion, that the calamities 
 which had fallen on the Irish nation had originated in the 
 sins of the people, and that Providence had brought on 
 them the chastisement of the English arms, because of 
 their still countenancing an unnatural traffic with England, 
 which consisted in purchasing their children and relations 
 as slaves. By the Anglo-Saxons, in earlier times, this 
 abominable species of commerce had been carried on to 
 such a degree as to sell any persons in their power, even 
 their own children, to the merchants of the continent 
 without any scruple:* but it is probable, as this barbarous 
 custom had sunk before the benignant influence of Chris- 
 tianity, the number of slaves of that nation was but small 
 at this period in Ireland. The immediate liberation, 
 however, of all these and their restoration to their country 
 and friends were decreed by this council as the most 
 effectual means of averting the vengeance of Heaven, and 
 procuring a deliverance from those calamities with which 
 the Divine Being was now visiting the guilty land. 
 
 The fame of Dermod's exploits, assisted by his British 
 associates, was soon wafted as far as Aquitain ; and the 
 English monarch heard, with a considerable degree of 
 indignation and jealousy, that the king of Leinster, not 
 content with the recovery of his own territories, had laid 
 claim to the sovereignty of the whole Island, and that 
 
 * See Ling., Ant. of the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 30, 
 
340 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 Strongbow was declared presumptive heir to the crown of 
 Leinster. Perceiving that the peace of his own dominions 
 might be endangered if his subjects in Wales should be led to 
 form too high an estimate of their own power and importance, 
 he issued a proclamation, prohibiting the exportation of 
 any supplies from England of men, arms, or provisions for 
 Strongbow's troops, and commanding all his subjects de- 
 laying in Ireland to return home before the ensuing 
 festival of Easter, under the penalty of the forfeiture of 
 all their lands, and banishment for ever.^ 
 
 This act of jealous power, which gave a mortifying and 
 unexpected blow to the ambitious projects of Strongbow 
 and his partisans, was quickly followed by the sickness and 
 death of Dermod, their protector, in his capital of Ferns, 
 where he ended his guilty career in a manner which 
 rendered him an odious and offensive spectacle of misery. 
 His body, it is said, became covered with fetid sores; 
 he was attacked with morbus pedicularis ; was deserted in 
 his extremity by every friend ; and expired without any 
 spiritual comfort, in a state of horrible impenitence. 
 
 * Cambrens., p. 770. 
 
 t O'Hal., Vol. III., p. 352. 
 
341 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Proceedings op Strongbow, and Invasion by 
 Henry II of England. 
 
 The death of this prince was followed by still more 
 calamitous consequences to the cause of the adventurers, 
 for it detached from their interest, Donald O'Brien, who 
 presently made peace with the monarch ; and, except a chief 
 named Donald Kavanagh and a few others, most of their 
 Irish allies followed his example. In this forlorn state of 
 his affairs, Strongbow called together his most faithful 
 friends, who resolved on the only expedient which sound 
 sense could dictate. In order to conciliate the king of 
 England, and to avert, if possible, the consequences of his 
 displeasure, Raymond Le Gros was dispatched with a letter 
 to Henry, in which the Welsh chieftain states, that he 
 came into this land, as far as he could remember, with his 
 majesty'^ leave and favour, to aid his servant Dermod Mac 
 Murchad ; that of what he had won by the sword he made 
 a tender to him, and that he was his Majesty's " life and 
 living." 
 
 The affairs of the English monarch, at the time this 
 letter was presented to him, had been reduced to a very 
 distressing situation. He had been engaged for some time in 
 a vexatious and even perilous contest with Thomas a Becket, 
 archbishop of Canterbury, who, encouraged and Drotectedby 
 the Roman pontiff, had violently opposed the Constitutions 
 of Clarendon, a body of regulations which had been drawn 
 
342 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 up in the year 1164, for the independence of the civil on 
 the ecclesiastical authority. The insolence of this ambitious 
 ecclesiastic, after a protracted contest, and ultimately a 
 seeming accommodation, had forced some passionate excla- 
 mations of complaint from the king, in consequence of 
 which the archbishop was assassinated in church, during the 
 time of divine service, by four knights who had come to 
 England for that purpose.* The report of this unfortunate 
 event, which now threatened to bring all the thunders of 
 the papal power to bear upon the king, had just arrived at 
 his court in the south of France, while Raymond Le Gros 
 was petitioning his Majesty in favour of Strongbow. This 
 ambassador from the earl had presented his letter to Henry, 
 but was received with marks of high displeasure, and 
 after a long attendance, was obliged to return to Ireland 
 without any answer. Besides the fears which the king 
 entertained of the pope's resentment, he perceived that to 
 accept the oflFers of Strongbow was to involve himself in 
 a war with Ireland, and in the present juncture of affairs, 
 the issue of this might be very precarious. He therefore 
 resolved, for the present, to give no decided answer to 
 Strongbow's letter, but to wait a more favourable opportu- 
 nity of prosecuting his long-meditated designs against 
 Ireland with more glory to himself add less obligation to 
 the earl and his associates. 
 
 On the first arrival of the British adventurers, the 
 archbishop of Dublin, a prelate highly esteemed for the 
 dignity of his birth, as well as for his reputed piety, had 
 endeavoured in vain to persuade the different chieftains to 
 
 * Hume's Hist, of Eng., Cap. VIII. 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. 343 
 
 lay aside their factious disputes and to unite against their 
 common enemy; and now the desperate condition of 
 Strongbow's forces gave him another opportunity of renew- 
 ing his exhortations to that effect. With a patriotic zeal 
 for the interests of his country, and an inveterate hatred 
 towards its invaders, he ran from tribe to tribe, and used 
 every exertion in his power to rouse the different chieftains 
 and their followers, and to convince them of the expediency 
 of laying hold on the present opportunity of either extermi- 
 nating or expelling the British invaders. By the exertions 
 of this prelate, Roderic was once more enabled to appear in 
 arms, at a time that seemed to give him peculiar advantages. 
 The period set in Henry's proclamation had now elapsed ; 
 Strongbow and his adherents were proscribed in Britain j 
 whilst their insatiable cupidity and unprecedented inhu- 
 manity had rendered them the objects of universal detesta- 
 tion in Ireland. The monarch, therefore, summoning his 
 friends and allies to his standard, appeared at the head of 
 a large army on the plains near Dublin, whilst a fleet of 
 thirty Danish vessels blockaded the harbour to prevent any 
 succours from being received by the garrison. 
 
 Meanwhile the British leaders within the city were not 
 idle in making preparations to withstand the assault of the 
 Irish ; they called in their outposts, and drained their 
 other garrisons to strengthen that of Dublin. But having 
 been surrounded by a host of enemies for two months, and 
 oppressed by famine and disease, they at length saw their 
 affairs coming speedily to a crisis, and their dejection was 
 increased by intelligence that Fitz-stephen was besieged in 
 the fortress of Carrick by the men of Wexford, and, if 
 not relieved before the end of three days, must inevitably 
 
344 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 fall into the hands of his enemies. In this distressed 
 situation, Strongbow called a council of war to deliberate 
 on what should be done, and it was unanimously agreed 
 that proposals should be made to the Irish monarch, through 
 the archbishop of Dublin, who at that time commanded a 
 body of troops in the Irish army, signifying their wish that 
 Strongbow should acknowledge him as their sovereign and 
 hold the kingdom of Leinster in vassalage under him. But 
 when the proposals of the besieged were formally discussed, 
 they were found inadmissible. Another prince had been 
 elected to the provincial throne, of the race of Cathai'r 
 More ; and those chiefs whose territories had been unlaw- 
 fully usurped, now put forward their claims that they 
 should be restored to their respective governments. The 
 only termis which the Irish were willing to grant the 
 besieged were, that as soon as they should make a peace- 
 able surrender of the city of Dublin, with the ports of 
 Waterford, Wexford, and other strongholds, they should 
 be provided with transports to convey themselves and their 
 effects to their own country, without the least hurt or 
 injury : but, if they should not comply with this requisition, 
 that a general assault should be made, and the garrison put 
 to the sword.* 
 
 On the return of the archbishop with this answer, which 
 was probably made so favourable through his intercession, 
 the besieged were at once aware of the critical position in 
 which they now stood. They had been proclaimed traitors 
 already in Britain \ and their own sovereign had not only 
 rejected the offers they made him, but had given them up 
 
 * O'HaL, V. III., p. 355. 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. 345 
 
 as a people devoted to certain destruction. In this situation 
 they came to a resolution worthy of gallant men who had 
 no alternative but death or victory. Milo de Cogan 
 declared that he would rather die in battle than deliver 
 himself into the hands of a cruel and vindictive foe ; and 
 Maurice Fitz-gerald, whose wife and children had been 
 left with Fitz-stephen in the fortress of Carrick, made an 
 animated speech, in which he avowed his determination to 
 act in a similar manner. 
 
 The spirit of these warriors was quickly caught by the 
 whole assembly ; and they agreed unanimously to make a 
 desperate sally on the following day, and to fall on the 
 monarch's own quarters, which, they naturally supposed 
 would be left carelessly guarded while this negociation was 
 being carried on. The archbishop ^as in their hands ; and 
 whilst that prelate, as well as the troops of the Irish 
 monarch, imagined they were deliberating on the message 
 that had been brought them, they were all busily engaged 
 in arming for the sortie. Before day-light they attacked 
 the monarch's quarters ; and such was the consternation 
 into which the besiegers were thrown, that they concluded 
 the garrison had received a large reinforcement from 
 England, whilst their surprise and fear induced them to 
 magnify the danger. Everything was instantly thrown 
 into confusion ; and Roderic himself, who was just preparing 
 for a bath, was obliged half-naked to join his flying- 
 troops, the whole of his forces having been driven from 
 their ground with terrible slaughter at the very first onset. 
 
 Actuated by no sense of a common interest, and influ- 
 enced by no attachment to their sovereign or friendship 
 for each other, the Irish princes who had accompanied the 
 
346 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 monarch and occupied different posts around the city, as 
 soon as they perceived the rout of the Connaught forces, 
 broke up their camps and fled to their respective territories, 
 leaving behind them, besides other spoils, a sufficient 
 quantity of provisions to support the garrison for a whole 
 year. Nor was this the only advantage gained by the rout 
 of the royal forces; for as soon as the Danish fleet perceived 
 that their stay any longer would be perfectly useless, they 
 returned home and left the sea as well as the land, open to 
 the adventurers. 
 
 Whilst the desperate state of Strongbow's affairs, and 
 the inevitable ruin which then menaced himself and his 
 followers, were the very means of his triumphant success, 
 the defenders of Carrick, were by a different line of con- 
 duct brought to destruction. The ruins of this little for- 
 tress, which was founded on a rock, are still to be seen about 
 two miles above Wexford, on the eastern bank of the river 
 Slaney. Fenced on all sides naturally by precipices and a 
 deep stream, it was at this time furnished with a slender 
 garrison, as Fitz-stephen had sent a considerable part of his 
 men for the defence of his associates in the city of Dublin. 
 Repulsed, however, by this little band that remained, the 
 assailants found themselves unable to take the fortress 
 expect by stratagem : and in their ardour for the reduction 
 of this stronghold of the enemy, they employed an artifice, 
 dishonourable to their memory, by which they got Fitz- 
 stephen into their hands, whom they loaded with chains, 
 whilst they so inhumanly tortured and maimed his follow- 
 ers, that most of them expired under the violence of their 
 sufferings. 
 
 On the rout of Roderic's forces at Dublin, Strongbowj 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. S4T 
 
 who marched instantly for the relief of Carrick, was placed 
 in imminent danger by an ambuscade which was laid for 
 him, in a territory called at that time Hy-Drone, in the 
 modern county of Carlow. But having defeated his 
 assailants and advanced towards Wexford, he had the morti- 
 fication of hearing that Fitz-stephen was in the hands of his 
 enemies, and that affairs were reduced to such a situation 
 as rendered his relief at present impracticable. Having 
 heard of the approach of Strongbow's forces, and appre- 
 hensive of the effects of their rage and resentment, the men 
 of Wexford, after setting fire to their town, had retired 
 with their surviving prisoners to a small island in the har- 
 bour called Holy Island, whence they sent a message to 
 Strongbow, declaring, if he should offer them any hostility 
 in that place, they would instantly put every one of their 
 prisoners to death. Influenced by this menace, and dread- 
 ing that it would be carried into immediate effect, Strongbow 
 relinquished his designs upon the people of Wexford ; and 
 having marched to Waterford, where he transacted some 
 business, he returned in a short time to Ferns, the regal 
 seat of the Lagenian princes. 
 
 Meanwhile the kingdom had been broken into factions 
 on the dispersion of the monarch's forces at Dublin ; and 
 by his irresolute and temporising spirit Roderic had lost 
 the confidence of the people. Donald O'Brien, who had 
 deserted the cause of the adventurers, again renounced the 
 monarch's authority, and entered into a fresh treaty with 
 Strongbow. Still it is reasonable to suppose, that the latter 
 would gladly have sacrificed much to be admitted to the 
 favour of his own sovereign ; and it is probable he con- 
 tinued to make new overtures for that purpose. But Henry 
 
348 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 had his own objects in view ; and as soon as these could be 
 safely accomplished, he was resolved to avail himself of the 
 assistance of this nobleman to bring about the ambitious 
 designs which he was meditating against Ireland. 
 
 While Strongbow was regulating his affairs at Ferns, and 
 punishing his enemies among the toparchs of Leinster, he re- 
 ceived a summons from Henry, commanding him to appear 
 immediately before him. The vigilance and abilities of 
 this talented monarch had warded off the blow that was 
 levelled at him by his enemies in the papal court ; and a*t 
 length, having found leisure to embark in his meditated 
 project against Ireland, he had arrived in his own dominions ; 
 and to confirm his disaw)wal of the earl's proceedings, had 
 issued this summons for Strongbow's appearance. 
 
 Strongbow, fearing to persevere in his obstinacy, and 
 dreading the king's resentment, after having appointed gov- 
 ernors to the several garrisons that were in his possession, 
 repaired instantly to England, and waited on the king at 
 Newnham, near Gloucester. Here he made a full surren- 
 der to his sovereign of all his maritime fortresses, with a 
 territory about Dublin; and, through the influence of 
 Hervey of Mountmorres, he was restored to the royal 
 favour as well as to his estates in England and Normandy, 
 and declared steward of Ireland.^ 
 
 Whatever dislike or hostility the king might have con- 
 ceived towards this nobleman, it was his interest to soothe 
 and flatter him, and it was equally incumbent on the latter 
 to seem persuaded of his good intentions. From the infor- 
 mation which Henry received in those conferences which 
 
 * (O'Hal. Vol. III., p. 36*1.) 
 
' . INVASION BY HENRY II. 349 
 
 he held with the earl about the reduction of Ireland, he had 
 no doubt about the ultimate success of his project, and 
 Strongbow was permitted to retain in perpetuity under 
 Henry and his heirs all his Irish possessions, except those 
 which he had already surrendered to the king. 
 
 The preparations which the English monarch was making 
 during the whole of the summer for the invasion of Ireland 
 were well known in that country ; but such was the infatua- 
 tion of the inhabitants that no attempt, was made upon 
 their part to oppose his landing, or even to retake those 
 cities which had fallen into the hands of the adventurers. 
 
 A fruitless attempt had indeed been made, on the city of 
 Dublin by O'Ruark of Breffny, but he had been repelled 
 by Milo de Cogan, the governor, with the loss of many on 
 both sides, including a son of O'Ruark's, who fell in the 
 conflict.* 
 
 Nothing can account for this apathy of the Irish people, 
 but the unhappy condition to which the political state of 
 their country had been reduced by the collision of factious 
 chieftains. It was not for want of courage in the natives 
 that the Britons had been hitherto so successful in this coun- 
 try, but for want of that union which would have forced the 
 latter to contend with the power of the nation. For, how- 
 ever the historian may speak of Ireland at this time as one 
 collected state, it is obvious the inhabitants had but faint 
 ideas of a national cause or a national force. f Their 
 different septs were respectively zealous for their own 
 interest or the honour of their own arms; but little 
 
 t Leland, B. I., Cap. I, 
 
350 HISTORY OF- IRELAND. 
 
 concerned about the fortune of a distant province, and 
 little affected by the disgrace or defeat of any chieftain 
 but their own. Koderic had lost the confidence of his peo- 
 ple, as he had been obliged, by want of union amongst his 
 subjects, to let slip several opportunities of annihilating his 
 enemies; and the Irish chieftains in general, unconscious 
 of a common interest, regarded with indifference, perhaps, 
 with malignant pleasure, the approaching downfall of their 
 nominal sovereign. Those from whom the nation had 
 reason to look for protection, confining their hopes and fears 
 to their own local concerns, had publicly betrayed its cause. 
 
 The two Munsters after having renounced the authority 
 of Eoderic, had entered into a treaty with Strongbow; and, as 
 the sequel would seem to prove, were privately encouraging 
 the designs of the English monarch, since Mac Carthy and 
 O'Brien were among the first to render him homage imme- 
 diately after his landing. The men of Wexford, conscious 
 of their own former perfidy in securing the fortress of 
 Carrick, and dreading the resentment of their enemies when 
 they should arrive under more favourable circumstances, 
 had sent a message to Henry before his embarkation for 
 Ireland, tendering their allegiance to him as their sovereign, 
 and complaining of the conduct of Fitz-stephen, whom they 
 had taken, they said, in arms as a traitor to his king, and 
 had reserved for his majesty's own judgment and disposal. 
 
 Henry, though sensible of the insincerity of all these pro- 
 fessions, with that policy for which he was ever distinguished, 
 commended highly the conduct of the Wexfordians, and 
 assured them that this chieftain, as well as the rest of his 
 offending subjects, should be brought to punishment and 
 Buffer the due reward of his crimes. Having therefore 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. 361 
 
 made every necessary preparation, the king, accompained 
 by Strongbow, proceeded through South Wales to Pembroke, 
 and after performing his devotions in the Church of St. 
 David's, and imploring the divine blessing on his arms em- 
 ployed under the authority, and in the cause of the Church, 
 he embarked at Milford Haven, and in a few hours entered 
 the harbour- of Waterford.^ 
 
 This fleet, consisting of two hundred and forty ships, 
 and conveying an army of 400 knights, and about 4000 
 inferior soldiers, was a formidable object to those on whose 
 coast it appeared ; and as no previous preparation had been 
 made to oppose his landing, any resistance now on the part 
 of the natives would have been not only unsuccessful, but 
 the means of exposing them to the resentment of a powerful 
 and dangerous foe. The ostensible purpose for which 
 Henry paid this visit to Ireland, being not to conquer, but 
 to take possession of a kingdom that was his by a grant of 
 the sovereign pontiff, he affected to believe that his sovereign 
 authority could not be disputed but ought to be acknow- 
 ledged and obeyed without the least difficulty or reluctance. 
 Amidst the acclamations of joy at the arrival of this new 
 sovereign, with his splendid train of Norman barons. Strong- 
 bow made a formal surrender of the city of Waterford, and 
 did homage to Henry for the principality of Leinster.f 
 Here, also, the men of Wexford, as an indication of 
 their extraordinary zeal in his cause, waited on his 
 majesty, and produced Fitz-Stephen, their prisoner, 
 whom the king with a stern rebuke remanded to prison. 
 
 » Art. 18. 1172. 
 t Cambrens,, p. 775. 
 
352 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 as if intending to inflict a severer punishment on him when 
 he should be more at leisure to take his particular case into 
 consideration. 
 
 Meanwhile the southern chieftains who, probably, from 
 disgust with their own monarch, had secretly encouraged the 
 invasion, came emulously forward to make their submission 
 to their new sovereign. The very next day after his land- 
 ing, Dermod Mac Carthy, the prince of Desmond, presented 
 him the keys of his capital city of Cork and rendered him 
 homage as monarch of Ireland. Having remained for a 
 few days in Waterford, Henry next proceeded with his army 
 to Lismore, where he rested for two days and gave orders 
 for the erection of a fort, and then proceeded to Cashel ; at 
 which city, Donald O'Brien, prince of Thomond, waited on 
 him, tendered him the keys of the city of Limerick, and 
 did him homage for his other territories. The example of 
 these princes of North and South Munster was soon after 
 followed by Fitzpatrick, prince of Ossory, O'Felan, chief of 
 the Deasies, and other inferior toparchs of Munster. Thence 
 he marched to Wexford, and, as it was now no longer ne- 
 cessary to keep up the appearance of resentment towards 
 Fitz-stephen, he premitted his barons to intercede for him 
 as a brave subject, who had not willingly or int.entionally 
 offended, for whose fidehty they were all ready to become 
 sureties, and who was himself prepared to give the best 
 security for his allegiance, by a formal resignation of all his 
 Irish possessions to his sovereign. Having therefore re- 
 ceived from that chieftain a surrender of the town of Wex- 
 ford and its territory, the king not only set him at liberty, 
 but granted him the investiture of all his other possessions. 
 
 Having provided for the security of Munster, and placed 
 
INVASION EY HENRY II. 353 
 
 garrisons in the cities of Cork, Limerick, Waterford and 
 Wexford, Henry next resolved to proceed to Dublin to take 
 formal possession of this city which had been already surren- 
 dered by Strongbow. To strike the inhabitants with the 
 splendour and magnificence of his army,as well as to give their 
 chieftains an opportunity of repairing to his camp, and of 
 acknowledging his sovereignty, he led his forces through the 
 district of Ossory in a slow and stately procession. In the 
 course of his progress, the great lords and chieftains of 
 Leinster acknowledged themselves in due form his vassals. 
 Even 0' Ruark of Breffny, hitherto the determined enemy 
 of the English and the steady and unwavering friend of 0' 
 Connor, was carried away by the general defection, and 
 tendered his submission with the rest of his compatriots. 
 The indifference of these chieftains to the interests of their 
 native monarch, which had increased with his declining 
 fortune, had, no doubt, to an extensive degree contributed 
 to produce this effect : but the appearance of a formidable 
 army hovering about the districts of each petty toparch, 
 when each was left to his own resources for defence, was 
 a still more powerful stimulus, to quicken the resolutions 
 they had already formed, and to induce them to submit to 
 the authority of the invader. 
 
 Harassed by the factions of his own hereditary province, 
 and afflicted by the unatural dissensions of his sons, Roderic 
 0' Connor beheld with grief and indignation, though not 
 with dismay, the defection of his tributaries and the for- 
 midable progress of the English monarch. But resolving 
 that his own territory at least should not be sacrificed to 
 the ambition of the invader, he collected his provincial 
 troops, and entrenched himself upon the banks of the 
 
354 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 Shannon, where he encouraged himself with a hope of 
 being able to withstand any onset of the enemy. As his 
 reduction, however, was a matter of prime importance to 
 Henry, while he was preparing a splendid entertainment 
 for those Irish chieftains who had become his vassals, he 
 dispatched Hugh de Lacy and William Fitzandelm, with 
 a body of troops against Koderic, in order either to per- 
 suade or force him to a submission. But all the efforts of 
 these two experienced warriors proved unsuccessful in ac- 
 complishing the object of their mission.* 
 
 Roderic, with his Conacian followers, having chosen his 
 ground with considerable judgment, had begun to act in a 
 spirit and with a dignity more suitable to his station, and 
 could neither be forced into submission, nor attacked by 
 the invader with any hopes of success. 
 
 Henry, being thus compelled to relinquish for the pre- 
 sent his designs against his western rival, according to his 
 stipulations with the pope, next turned his attention to 
 ecclesiastical affairs. He summoned at Cashel, a general 
 
 * Giraldus indeed asserts that Roderic yielded at the instance 
 of De Lacj and Fitzandelm, swore allegiance to Henry, and 
 gave hostages as a security for the faithful payment of his 
 tribute. But the Irish annalists acknowledged no such submis- 
 sion ; and the abbot of Peterborough declares ingenuously that 
 the King of Connaught still continued to maintain his indepen- 
 dence, agreeing in this with the artless historical strictures of 
 Ireland, which distinctly mark the extent of Henry's present 
 acquisitions, without the least appearance of disguise or par- 
 tiality, and represent their monarch as still exercising an inde- 
 pendent sovereignty, opposing the invaders, and at length 
 treating with Henry at the time and in the manner stated on 
 record. — Leland, Vol. I., p. 72. 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. 355 
 
 assembly of the clergy of Ireland, or at least of that part 
 that had submitted to his authority, and there exhibited the 
 bull of Pope Adrian by which the sovereignty of this 
 island was transferred from all the branches of Irish royalty 
 to an entire stranger, for the good of the Church and the 
 complete eradication of vice and corruption. In this synod, 
 which was numerously attended by the clergy of Leinster 
 and Munster, Christian, bishop of Lismore presided as the 
 pope's legate ; and it was also attended by the lords who 
 had submitted themselves to the English monarch ; but was 
 not sanctioned by Gelasius, the primate, nor by a consider- 
 able portion of the Irish ecclesiastics. The bull of Pope 
 Adrian having been produced was then read, and was to 
 the following effect : — 
 
 " Adrian, bishop and servant of the servants of God, to 
 his most dear son in Christ, the illustrious hing of 
 England, greeting; health, and apostolical benedic- 
 tion.^^ 
 
 " Thy greatness, as is becoming a Catholic prince, is 
 laudably and successfully employed, in thought and inten- 
 tion, to propagate a glorious name upon earth, and lay up 
 in heaven the rewards of a happy eternity, by extending the 
 boundaries of the church, and making known to nations 
 which are uninstructed, and still ignorant of the Christian 
 faith, its truths and doctrine, by rooting up the seeds of 
 vice from the land of the Lord : and to perform this more 
 efficaciously, thou seekest the counsel and protection of the 
 apostolical see, in which undertaking, the more exalted thy 
 design will be, united with prudence, the more propitious, 
 we trust, will be thy progress under a benign Providence, 
 
356 HISTORY OF IBELAND. 
 
 since a happy issue and end are always the result of what 
 has been undertaken from an ardour of faith, and a love of 
 religion. 
 
 '' It is not, indeed, to be doubted, that the kingdom of 
 Ireland, and every island upon which Christ the sun of right- 
 eousness hath shone, and which have received the principles 
 of the Christian faith, belong of right to St. Peter, and to 
 the holy Roman Church, (which thy majesty likewise 
 admits,) from whence we the more fully implant in them 
 the seed of faith, that seed which is acceptable to God, and 
 to which we, after a minute investigation, consider that a 
 conformity should be required by us the more rigidly. 
 Thou, dearest son in Christ, hast likewise signified to us, 
 that for the purpose of subjecting the people of Ireland to 
 laws, and eradicating vice from among them, thou art 
 desirous of entering that island ; and also of paying for 
 each house an annual tribute of one penny to St. Peter ; 
 and of preserving the privileges of its churches pure and 
 undefiled. We, therefore, with approving and favourable 
 views commend thy pious and laudable desire, and to aid 
 thy undertaking, we give to thy petition our grateful and 
 willing consent, that for the extending the boundaries of 
 the church, the restraining the prevalence of vice, the im- 
 provement of morals, the implanting of virtue, and propa- 
 gation of the Christian religion, thou enter that island, 
 and pursue those things which shall tend to the honour of 
 God, and salvation of his people ; and that they may 
 receive thee with honour, and revere thee as their lord : the 
 privilege of their churches continuing pure and unres- 
 trained, and the annual tribute of one penny from each 
 bouse remaining secure to St. Peter, and the holy Roman 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. 357 
 
 Church. If thou, therefore, deem what thou hast projected 
 
 in mind possible to be completed, study to instil good 
 
 morals into that people, and act so that thou thyself, and 
 
 such persons as thou wilt judge competent, from their faith, 
 
 words, and actions, to be instrumental in advancing the 
 
 honour of the Irish Church, propagate and promote religion, 
 
 and the faith of Christ, to advance thereby the honour of 
 
 God, and salvation of souls, that thou mayest merit an 
 
 everlasting reward of happiness hereafter, and establish on 
 
 earth a name of glory, which shall last for ages to come. 
 
 Given at Rome, &c." 
 f 
 
 This bull so unfounded in its charges against the Irish 
 Church, has been justly the subject of much animadversion, 
 even by those writers who are willing to acknowledge the 
 spirtual supremacy of the Roman pontiff. They have given 
 an enumeration of those eminent prelates and other eccle' 
 siastics in Ireland who distinguished themselves in this 
 very age for their piety and learning ; but as one of them 
 has justly remarked, "it would have been better for the 
 nation had they been able to mention a Brian, a Kennedy, 
 or a Ceallachan, who, with the sword, would have at 
 once cut through the fascination ! "* But the time of 
 Ireland's military glory had passed away ; and through the 
 intrigues of an artful monarch and the insolent assumption 
 of a foreign ecclesiastic, she was now, and for ages afterwards, 
 doomed to suffer those calamities, which formed the most 
 prominent feature in her subsequent history. 
 
 The injustice of the charges contained in this bull, and 
 
 ♦ O'Hal, 
 
358 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 their glaring inapplicability to the Irish Church, have 
 induced some of the zealous sticklers for the honour of the 
 papacy, to call in question its authenticity, and to sup- 
 pose it impossible that it could have proceeded from the 
 apostoHc see. But how unjust soever this papal document 
 may appear to the world, we have the most irrefragable 
 proofs that it could not have been a forgery. The follow- 
 ing confirmation of it by Pope Alexander III, which was 
 published in the lifetime of that pontiff by Cambrensis, is 
 of itself sufficient evidence upon this subject. 
 
 " Alexander^ bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his 
 most dear son in Christ, the illustrious king of Eng- 
 land, health and apostolical benediction. 
 
 " Forasmuch as those things which are known to have 
 been reasonably granted by our predecessors, deserve to be 
 confirmed in lasting stability, we, adhering to the foot- 
 steps of Pope Adrian, and regarding the result of our gift 
 to you, (the annual tax of one penny from each house 
 being secured to St. Peter and the holy Roman Church,) 
 confirm and ratify the same, considering that its impurities 
 being cleansed, that barbarous nation which bears the name 
 of Christian, may, by your grace, assume the comeliness of 
 morality ; and that a system of discipline being introduced 
 into her heretofore unregulated church, she may, through 
 you, effectually attain, with the name, the benefits of Christ- 
 ianity." 
 
 Through the powerful influence of the various engines 
 which were now at work, the bull of the pontiff was re- 
 ceived by the Synod, and the sovereignty of Ireland was 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. 859 
 
 conferred on the English monarch and his heirs for ever, by 
 the reverend fathers composing this assembly. The refor- 
 mation of the Irish Church was next discussed ; and eight 
 canons or ordinances passed for the purpose of carry- 
 ing into effect the pious intentions of the king ! 1. That 
 the people should not marry within the prohibited 
 degrees of affinity or consanguinity. 2. That children 
 should be catechised outside the church door, and infants 
 baptised at the font. 3. That tithes of cattle and corn 
 should be paid to the church. 4. That church lands and 
 all ecclesiastical . property should be exempt from secular 
 exactions. 5. That the clergy should be released from 
 eric, or retribution, on account of murder or other crimes, 
 committed by their relations. 6. That all true sons of 
 the church should have power by will to distribute their 
 effects in due proportion between their wives and chil- 
 dren. 7. That Christians when dead should be brought to 
 the church, and decently interred in hallowed ground ; and 
 8. That divine service in the Church of Ireland should 
 for the future be in all things conformable to that of the 
 Church of England. " For it is meet and just," says Cam- 
 brensis, who has given us an account of this synod, " that 
 as Ireland has by Providence received a lord and king from 
 England, so she may receive from the same a better form 
 of living. For to his royal grandeur are both the church 
 and realm of Ireland indebted for whatever they have 
 hitherto obtained, either of the benefits of peace, or the 
 increase of religion. Since, before his coming into Ireland^ 
 evils of various kinds had from old times gradually over- 
 spread the nation, which by his power and goodness are 
 now abolished." 
 
S60 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 These regulations, the greater part of which are set down 
 for mere parade, having been adopted by the council, the 
 great object of Henry's mission was accomplished, at least 
 as far as the church was concerned : but the civil subjec- 
 tion of this island to the crown of England was far from 
 being attained. The king of England, by the public sub- 
 missions of the princes of Munster, Leinster, Ossory, and 
 the Deasies, as well as through the influence of the clergy 
 of their respectives territories, became sovereign of Leath- 
 Mogha, or the southern half of Ireland ; but still Roderic 
 O'Connor, and O'Nial, the powerful dynast of the north, 
 were as much as ever his open and avowed enemies. His 
 stay in Ireland was for several months, during which time 
 nothing remarkable happened, except the submission of 
 the princes of the south, and a fatal plague which followed 
 soon after, by which thousands perished.* 
 
 But whilst meditating plans for securing and extending 
 his conquests as soon as the season would permit, Henry 
 was informed at Wexford, that Albert and Theodine, two 
 cardinals, who had been sent by the pope to inquire into 
 the causes of the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 were long expecting his arrival in Normandy, and had sum- 
 moned him to appear before them under pain of excommu- 
 nication and of an interdict on his dominions. The earlier 
 arrival of this alarming piece of intelligence had been pre- 
 vented by a tempestuous winter ; and being sensible of 
 the danger to which he would be exposed by the acts of 
 spiritual power, he embarked at the festival of Easter, 
 1173, and having made some arrangements for the admin- 
 
 O'Hal. 377, 
 
INVASION BY HENRY II. 361 
 
 istration of affairs in his absence, lie sailed from Wexford 
 arrived in Pembrokeshire, and set out for Normandy with 
 all the precipitation which his circumstances required. 
 
 The people of Ireland after this period became severally 
 subject to two very different forms of government. The 
 British colonists, placed in the same political situation 
 with their fellow-subjects in England, were governed by 
 English laws ; whilst the condition of the Irish princes 
 who had submitted to a new sovereignty, underwent no 
 change, but by their professing allegiance to the king of 
 England instead of their own sovereign. Their ancient 
 Brehon jurisprudence was as much in force as ever ; and 
 whilst they continued to observe their ancient customs 
 and modes of succession, they acted as independent poten- 
 tates in waging war with each other, and entering into 
 theii' usual alliances offensive and defensive. Of the ter- 
 ritories acquired by himself and his British subjects in 
 Ireland, and which when afterwards enlarged and divided 
 into counties were denominated the English pale, Henry 
 reserved, as his own immediate property, the maritime 
 towns, and some districts. The rest of the surrendered 
 lands he divided amongst the leaders of his troops, which 
 they were to possess in military tenure as feudal right, 
 being bound, not only to do homage to their sovereign for 
 their respective holdings, and to pay him tribute, but to 
 support a certain number of knights and inferior soldiers 
 for his service. These leaders, who, in every other 
 respect, were absolute and hereditary lords and princes in 
 their respective territories, parcelled out their lands in 
 like manner to certain knights or gentlemen, who, instead 
 of rent, gave military service, each furnishing, when required 
 
362 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 a number of soldiers in proportion to the quantity of land 
 he possessed. 
 
 Henry, while in Ireland, amongst his other acts of regal 
 authority, granted the city of Dublin, by a charter, to the 
 citizens of Bristol with the same privileges as those which 
 they enjoyed at home.* In like manner the city of Water- 
 ford was granted to the Ostmen or Danes, where they were 
 to enjoy all the rights of English subjects, and all the 
 advantages of the laws of England. By a statute enacted 
 by the king in council, in order to make a provision for 
 the uninterrupted administration of affairs in his absence, 
 the chancellor, treasurer, chief justices, chief baron, keeper 
 of the rolls, and the king's sergeant at law, were empowered 
 to elect, with the consent of the nobles of the land, a suc- 
 cessor to the chief governor in case of his death, vested 
 with the full authority of the king's vicegerent, until the 
 royal pleasure should in that particular be notified. The 
 office of chief governor was conferred on Hugh de Lacy, 
 who had Robert Fitzstephen and Maurice Fitzgerald 
 appointed as his coadjutors. The territory of Meath, akeady 
 in possession of English troops, was granted to De Lacy : 
 and to John de Courcey, an adventurous baron, the whole 
 province of Ulster was assigned, provided he should be able 
 to subjugate the Ultonians, and take possession of their 
 lands. 
 
 * See Leland, Book I, Cap. 3, with the authorities he cites. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Events subsequent to Henry's personal Invasion 
 OF Ireland till the time of his Death. 
 
 On Henry's departure from Ireland, it was soon found, 
 that he had not left behind him in this country one true 
 subject more than he had found in it at his first arrival.* 
 The unsettled state in which he had been obliged to leave 
 his Irish acquisitions, began to appear in a short time after 
 his departure from that country. Strongbow having 
 marched into Ofally to enforce the payment of his tribute 
 from a toparch named O'Dempsy, was attacked by the na- 
 tives while returning, and his rear-guard obliged to sustain 
 a furious assault, with the loss of some men, particularly 
 Robert de Quiny, his standard-bearer and son-in-law. 
 O'Ruark of Breffny was killed on the hill of Tara, with 
 many of his followers, where he had met Hugh de Lacy 
 in conference, in order to settle some disputes, and had, 
 according to the account of English writers, prepared an 
 ambuscade for the destruction of the chief governor, which 
 was prevented by prud^ent precautions, but, according to 
 that of the Irish, he fell by the treachery and blood-thirsty 
 disposition of the foreigners. Besides these petty hostilities, 
 almost all the native chieftains who had sworn allegiance 
 to the English monarch rose in arms, and encouraged by 
 
 * See Sir John Davis' Discovery of the causes why Ireland was 
 never entirely subdued until the beginning of the isj^ign of 
 James the First, 
 
364 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the embarrassments of the king elsewhere, raised various 
 insurrections in different parts of the country. 
 
 Henry, to whose crown a numerous progeny of sons and 
 daughters had given both lustre and authority, had evinced 
 an imprudent but affectionate zeal in giving splendid 
 establishments to the several branches of his family, but 
 his paternal kindness met with an ungrateful return 
 from his sons. He had appointed Henry, the eldest, to be his 
 successor in the kingdom of England, granting him the duchy 
 of Normandy, and the counties of Anjou, Maine, and Tou- 
 raine : to Richard, his second son, he had assigned the 
 duchy of Guienne and county of Poictou : Geoffry, his 
 third son, inherited, in right of his wife, the duchy of 
 Britanny : and the new conquest of Ireland was destined 
 for the appanage of John, his fourth son.'^ In order to 
 insure the succession to his eldest son, this monarch had 
 made him his associate in the throne by a solemn corona- 
 tion : but the young prince being afterwards allowed to 
 pay a visit to his father-in-law, Lewis the seventh of 
 France, that crafty and imperious monarch persuaded him 
 that he had a right to the immediate enjoyment of sovereign 
 power, by virtue of the royal unction which he had received ; 
 and that his father could not, without injustice, exclude 
 him from the immediate possession of the whole, or, at 
 least, a part of his dominions.f In consequence of these 
 extravagant ideas, when the English monarch refused to 
 accede to the wishes of the yo<ung prince, the latter attempt- 
 ed to enforce his unrighteous claims by an appeal to the 
 
 * Hume. Hist. Cap. IX. 
 t Cambrens, p. 782. 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 365 
 
 sword ; and in this unnatural rebellion he was assisted by 
 his brothers, who also claimed the immediate possession of 
 the territories assigned them. In the dangerous war thus 
 excited against the king, the alacrity with which Strongbow 
 fled to his assistance in Normandy, gained the confidence 
 of that monarch to such a degree that he appointed him 
 chief governor of Ireland, and sent him back with dis- 
 cretionary powe]?s for the management of the turbulent 
 affairs of that country. 
 
 1174. On his arrival in Ireland, Strongbow found the 
 army, which had been entrusted to the command of Hervey 
 of Mountmorres, so mutinous and discontented with their 
 leader, that he was obliged to transfer the supreme military 
 authority to Raymond le Gros, who began immediately to 
 act with vigour, notwithstanding the great diminution of 
 his forces, by the assistance which the new chief governor 
 was obliged to render his royal master in other parts of 
 his dominions. Having ravaged Ofally and Lismore, 
 Raymond marched back along the coast to Waterford, 
 conveying his booty in some vessels which he had found 
 at anchor ; and though he was attacked in his progress 
 both by sea and land, he was victorious on both elements. 
 Acquainted with his proceedings, and encouraged by a 
 contrary wind which prevailed for some time, thie men of 
 Cork, resolved if possible to destroy his transports, and to 
 wreak their vengeance on his followers towards whom they 
 entertained the most inveterate hostility. The king's 
 necessities had obliged him to withdraw the English gar- 
 rison from the city of Cork ; which, upon its evacuation, had 
 been re-occupied by MacCarthy ; and now the inhabitants, 
 in order to evince their zeal in the cause of their native 
 
366 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 chieftain, hastily fitted out thirty barks, and fell with the 
 utmost fury on the English transports, which had not yet 
 weighed anchor. This sudden and unexpected assault was, 
 however, sustained with considerable intrepidity ; and 
 such was the success of the English on this occasion that 
 they took eight vessels from the enemy, and sailed in 
 triumph to their place of destination. Raymond, apprised 
 of this atte i pt to destroy his little fleet, was hastening to 
 their assistance,when he found himself suddenly encountered 
 by the forces of the prince of Desmond, but succeeded in 
 putting the followers of that chieftain to a shameful flight. 
 
 Elated by their success in these trivial engagements, 
 the British soldiers were confirmed in the high opinion 
 they had formed of their new leader : but Raymond being 
 disgusted by Strongbow's refusal to give him his sister 
 Basilia in marriage, resigned the command of the troops 
 in Ireland, and retired into Wales, leaving them to be 
 conducted by their former general. 
 
 Sensible of the obscurity into which his own character 
 had been thrown by the superior lustre of his rival, Hervey 
 now resolved by some brilliant exploits to signalize himself 
 as a military leader, and to emulate the successes of his 
 predecessor in command. He represented to the chief 
 governor the necessity of directing all his energies against 
 that spirit of insubordination which had been evinced by the 
 princes of Munster ; and urged that, by chastising their 
 revolt as well as by reducing them to obedience, he might 
 strike terror into those who were disafiected, but had not 
 dared to commence hostilities. These plausible representa- 
 tions had the desired effect upon the mind of the chief 
 governor whose genius was better fitted to adopt and execute 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OP HENRY. 367 
 
 the project of others than to form new plans of operation 
 for himself. In conjunction with Mountmorres he led a 
 considerable body of forces to the city of Cashel, where 
 they reviewed their troops, and received information of the 
 general state of the enemies with whom they had to contend.* 
 But either diffident of their own forces, or wishing to give 
 their armament a more brilliant and formidable appearance, 
 they dispatched orders to Dublin, for a considerable party 
 of the garrison, consisting of Ostmen who had engaged in 
 the service of the English, to gain their main body without 
 delay. O'Brien of Thomond, apprised of the advance of 
 this detachment, and implacably hostile to the invaders of 
 his country, resolved to intercept them in their march, and 
 by cutting them off, to give a severe and disheartening blow 
 o the sanguine expectations of the enemy. He permitted 
 the Ostmen to advance as for as Thurles, and there to 
 encamp in a state of careless security ; but falling suddenly 
 upon them, he routed the whole detachment, and left their 
 four principal commanders, with about four hundred of 
 their men dead upon the field. 
 
 To complete the triumph of the Momonian chieftain, 
 as soon as Strongbow received the intelligence of this mis- 
 fortune, he retreated with all the precipitation of a defeated 
 general, and was obliged to throw himself into Water- 
 ford, as a place of security from the rage of his enemies. 
 The report of this misfortune was quickly spread through- 
 out the country ; f the Irish chieftains rose everywhere 
 
 t " The Irish annalists assure us, that on the report of 
 Strongbow'a march into Munster, Roderic advanced with an 
 
868 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 in arms : and even those who had lately made their sub- 
 missions, and bound themselves to the service of the 
 English monarch, now openly disclaimed all their former 
 engagements. Donald Kavanagh himself, a son of the 
 late Dermod Mac Murchad, and a chieftain who had 
 hitherto faithfully adhered to the cause of the invaders, 
 now asserted his title to the kingdom of Leinster, and 
 deserted the interests of his former allies ; whilst Roderic 
 O'Connor, embracing the favourable opportunity, used 
 every exertion to unite the princes of Ulster, the native 
 chieftains of Meath, and other toparchs, against the com- 
 mon enemy of their country. 
 
 Perceiving the error into which he had fallen by offend- 
 ing Le Gros, and sensible of the loss he had sustained 
 by the resignation of that chieftain, Strongbow, without 
 the least hesitation or delay, sent into Wales, entreating 
 Raymond to return to Ireland with such forces as he 
 could procure, and freely offering to gratify him in all his 
 late demands. Such an application was too flattering to the 
 vanity of the retired general to be resisted ; and with all 
 the promptitude which the mingled emotions of love, 
 pride, and ambition could inspire, he made his preparations, 
 
 army into Ormond, in order to oppose him : that the news of 
 his approach determined the English leader to send to Dublin 
 for a reinforcement; that this reinforcement arriving safe, 
 Strongbow led his forces to the plain of Durlus ; that he here 
 engaged O'Brien and Dal-cais, the army of Jer-Connaught, 
 and the invincible army of Gil-Muiredhy, under the command 
 of Connor Moenmay, son of Roderic, and was defeated with 
 the loss of seven hundred (or seventeen hundred) men." 
 Leland, ut supra. 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 369 
 
 and steered his course for Waterford, accompanied by 
 thirty leaders of his own kindred, one hundred horsemen, 
 and three hundred hardy and well-appointed archers. 
 
 As soon as Le Gros arrived in Waterford, and had an 
 interview with the chief governor, it was mutually agreed 
 they should march immediately to Wexford, and that the 
 marriage of the former with Strongbow's sister should be 
 perfonned without delay. The citizens of Waterford, 
 naturally averse to the English invaders, and rendered 
 still more hostile by their rigorous oppressions, as soon 
 as the chief governor was gone, formed the desperate 
 resolution of freeing themselves from their insolent 
 masters by a general massacre of the garrison. The latter, 
 little suspecting any violence or treachery within the walls, 
 felt that confidence and security in which men generally 
 indulge who are surrounded by their friends and adherents, 
 and thus afford a more favourable opportunity for the 
 execution of the designs of their secret enemies. Their 
 commander, while crossing the river Suir, was, with his 
 few attendants, murdered by the mariners who conveyed 
 themj and as soon as intelligence of this event was 
 carried to the city, all the English who could be found 
 unarmed, were suddenly assailed, and slaughtered with- 
 out distinction of age, sex, or condition. Such of the 
 garrison as were able, on this emergency, to take up arms, 
 joined their associates in the citadel called Reginald's 
 Tower ; and there not only succeeded in defending them- 
 selves, but at length drove their assailants from the city, 
 and obliged them to sue for peace and accept it on the 
 most rigorous terms. 
 
 Meanwhile the town of Wexford was a scene of joyful 
 
370 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 mirth and splendid festivity: Strongbow's sister Basilia 
 had arrived thither from Dublin, with a magnificent train, 
 and had been solemnly espoused by Le Gros who 
 received a large portion of lands as her dowry, and was 
 invested with the office of constable and standard-bearer 
 of Leinster. But such was the urgency of public affairs 
 that on the following day, after the nuptials were per- 
 formed, the bridegroom was obliged to commence his 
 march for Meath, in which territory Roderic O'Connor 
 had demolished the English fortresses, and wasted the 
 lands of such as professed allegiance to the English 
 monarch. But the Irish chieftains, actuated by sudden 
 and transient impressions of passion, rather than by any 
 reasonable and settled principle of duty or public spirit, 
 having deserted O'Connor, that prince had commenced 
 his retreat into his own province, before the arrival of the 
 British forces, and, though pursued by the enemy, he lost 
 only about one hundred and fifty men, who were killed in 
 the rear of the fugitive Conacians. 
 
 The success of the English in re-establishing their 
 settlements in Meath, and the death of Donald Kavanagh, 
 who fell in an engagement with a party of Irishmen 
 employed in the English service, had an extensive influence 
 upon the minds of the disaffected in Leinster, and an 
 appearance of order and tranquillity was established 
 throughout the English territories. But O'Brien, the 
 valiant and influential prince of Thomond, was still 
 unsubdued ; and the chief governor now saw the necessity 
 of directing his arms against that refractory and revolted 
 chieftain. Limerick, the capital of North Munster, sit- 
 uated on the Shannon, about sixty miles from the sea, 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 371 
 
 was ill his possession, and appeared to bid defiance to 
 the utmost efforts of the enemy, as the river intervened 
 and the bridges had been previously broken. Kaymond, 
 by whom its siege was undertaken, with a chosen band of 
 six hundred men, advanced to its attack ; and, discovering 
 a place where the stream was fordable, thougli extremely 
 dangerous, he succeeded in gaining the opposite side with 
 the loss of only three of his men ; and such was the effect 
 produced upon the Irish by this desperate act of intre- 
 pidity that they fled in all directions, whilst the troops of 
 the British commander entered the city in triumph, having 
 slaughtered numbers of the fugitives without any resist- 
 ance.* 
 
 A. D. 1175. In the meantime, Roderic O'Connor, who, 
 amidst various afflictions, had held out for four years, and 
 retained his hereditary dominions in Connaught, per- 
 ceiving that no efficient aid was to be expected from those 
 Irish princes and chieftains that still professed allegiance 
 to him, and dreading an attack from the English by a 
 force superior to his own, resolved to save his own prov- 
 ince at least from the depredations of an incensed and 
 victorious enemy, by a timely submission to the English 
 monarch. This resolution was strengthened by the success 
 which had attended the arms of the latter in other parts 
 of his dominions, where, by the wisdom and vigorous 
 execution of his plans, he had vanquished his unnatural 
 
 * " With the forcing of this passage, the fragment[|ends ab- 
 ruptly of Irish history left us by Maurice Regan, the secretary 
 of Dermod, which generally agrees with the more full relations 
 of Giraldus Cambrensis." Gordon. Vol. I., p. 112. 
 
872 itlSTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 sons, and their numerous abettors and allies. Accordingly 
 three commisssioners from Roderic, his chancellor, styled 
 in the old English manner, Master Lawrence ; Catholicus, 
 archbishop of Tuam; and the abbot of St. Brandon, 
 waited on Henry at Windsor, where a treaty of peace 
 was concluded between the two parties. The terms of 
 this peace and concord are comprised in four articles. 
 By the first, on Roderic agreeing to do homage to the 
 king of England, and to pay him a certain tribute, he was 
 to possess his kingdom of Connaught in as full and ample 
 a manner as before the arrival of Henry in Ireland. By 
 the second, Henry was engaged to support and defend the 
 king of Connaught in his territories ; and the latter was 
 to pay to Henry a tenth of all the merchantable hides 
 from the lands of Ireland. The third article excepts 
 from this condition all such domains as pertained to the 
 English monarch himself, or his barons. And the fourth 
 article declares, that such of the Irish as had fled from 
 the lands held by the English barons, might return in 
 peace, on the payment of the above tribute, or such other 
 services as they were anciently accustomed to perform 
 for their tenures, at the option of their lords.* 
 
 This treaty, in which Henry treated with Roderic not 
 merely as a provincial prince, but as monarch of Ireland,f 
 
 * 'Hal. 
 
 t That the Irish entertained this idea of the treaty is evident 
 from the following extract which Dr. L eland makes from the 
 Annals of Leinster : — " An. 1175. Catholicus O'Dubhy came out 
 of England from the empress's son ; with the peace of Ireland 
 and the royal sovereignty of all Ireland, to Rory O'Connor, and 
 his own (oigidh) province to each provincial king in Ireland, 
 and their rents to Rory." — Ann. Lagen. M.S, 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 373 
 
 was solemnly ratified in a grand council of prelates and 
 temporal barons, among whom the archbishop of Dublin 
 was one of the subscribing witnesses. That artful prince, 
 who had hitherto paid little regard to the claims of the 
 king of Connaught upon the monarchy of Ireland, now 
 seemed anxious that his supremacy should be acknow- 
 ledged, in order that the present submission might appear 
 to be virtually the submission of all the subordinate 
 princes, so as to invest himself with the complete sovereign- 
 ty of the whole island. The marks, however, of this sov- 
 ereignty were no more than merely the payment of hom- 
 age and tribute ; for in every other particular the regal 
 rights of Eoderic were left inviolate. The English laws 
 and government were evidently to be enforced only in the 
 English pale ; and even within this district the Irish 
 tenant might live in peace, as the subject of the Irish 
 monarch, b'ound only to pay his quota of tribute, and not 
 to take arms against the king of England.* 
 
 A. D. 1176. But a people who were guided by the uncer- 
 tain impulses of their own passions were not to be influenced 
 by treaties such as this, especially as they had long since 
 lost every idea of their obligations to obey their own nomi- 
 nal sovereign. Accordingly, the following year, O'Brien 
 of Thomond, the vigorous and formidable enemy of the 
 English power, laid siege to Limerick, and when Raymond 
 le Gros marched for the relief of that city, the Irish 
 chieftain, abandoning the siege, took post with his army 
 in a defile near Cashel in order to intercept him. But the 
 British leader, with a force consisting of eighty knights, 
 
 * Leland ut supra. 
 
374 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 two hundred inferior cavalry, and- three hundred archers, 
 forced the entrenchments of the enemy, and received hos- 
 tages from O'Brien, as a security for his future allegiance. 
 At the same time, Roderic O'Connor, in pursuance of his 
 late treaty, repaired to Raymond, to deliver his hostages, 
 and to take the oaths of fealty : so that in one day Le 
 Gros had the honour of receiving the submission of the 
 king of Connaught as well as of the prince of Thomond.^ 
 
 Invited by MacCarthy, whose eldest son, Cormac, had 
 usurped his principality, and thrown his father into prison, 
 Raymond next led his forces into Desmond, and restored 
 the injured prince to his provincial throne, for which service 
 he received an extensive tract of land in that part of the 
 country. MacCarthy, enraged with the unnatural conduct 
 of his son, and to requite him for his baseness, had him cast 
 into that prison from which he had been so recently res- 
 cued himself, and soon after put him to death, as a traitor 
 to his prince and an usurper of his father's throne. 
 
 Raymond had scarcely accomplished this laudable task 
 in Desmond, when he received a letter from Basilia, his 
 wife, informing him that " her great tooth which had been 
 so long aching was at last fallen from the socket," and in- 
 treating him to return to Dublin with all imaginable speed. 
 The death of Strongbow being thus mysteriously expressed, 
 lest the letter might be intercepted, he set out immediately 
 for Dublin, after having given the city of Limerick in 
 charge to O'Brien, being himself unable to spare any of 
 his English troops for its garrison. But, notwithstanding 
 the prince of Thomond upon this occasion took a solemn 
 
 * Loland ut supra. 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF AeNRY. 375 
 
 oathj to guard the city for the king of England, and to re- 
 store it to the representatives of that monarch at the royal 
 pleasure, he set fire to it in four different quarters, as soon 
 as the British commander had taken his departure, and 
 declared that this town should no longer continue to be 
 the nest of foreigners. By Eva, the daughter of Dermod, 
 whom he espoused, Strongbow left only one surviving 
 child, a daughter four years of age, who, about ten years 
 afterwards, became the wife of William, Earl Marshal of 
 England. 
 
 Previously to Raymond's late expedition to Limerick, 
 Henry, whose jealousy had been excited through the envy 
 of Hervey of Mountmorres, had summoned the former into 
 England; but as the troops refused to march under any 
 other general, and the four commissioners delegated for 
 that purpose were convinced of the extreme urgency of 
 affairs, they had suspended the execution of the summons ; 
 and, influenced now by motives of a similar nature, on the 
 death of Strongbow, they concurred with the council, by 
 whom Le Grros was elected chief governor until the royal 
 pleasure should be known upon that appointment. But 
 notwithstanding the very favourable account of his com- 
 missioners, the English monarch continued to evince the 
 diffidence he felt in Raymond's integrity, and he deputed 
 to the office William Fitz-Andelm, a nobleman allied to him 
 by blood,* and a man who is said to have been prepos- 
 
 * Arlotta, moth«r of the conqueror, was married to Harlowen 
 de Burgo, by whom she had Robert, Earl of Cornwall, whose 
 two sons were Andelm and John. Andelm had issue this Wil- 
 liam Fitz-Andelm ; John was the father of Hubert de Burgo, 
 chief justiciary of England.— Cox. 
 
376 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 sesBed against the original adventurers, unfit for vigorous 
 measures, rapacious, and more intent upon his own gain 
 and that of his adherents, than on the interests of the 
 English colony in general. 
 
 A. D. 1177. With a numerous train, amongst whom were 
 Vivian, the pope's legate, and Nicholas Wallingford, an 
 English ecclesiastic, with the brief of pope Alexander, lately 
 granted to the king in confirmation of his title to Ireland, 
 Fitz-Andelm landed at Wexford, where Le Gros was in 
 readiness to receive him. At this interview, the new chief 
 governor is said to have looked with a malignant eye upon 
 the number and gallant appearance of Raymond's train ; 
 and, turning to his followers, was weak enough to threaten 
 that he would soon find means of humbling their pride 
 and ostentation.* He began his administration by a state- 
 ly progress along the coast, in order to inspect the forts 
 and cities immediately vested in the king ; while the eccle- 
 siastics were on their part active in the service of their 
 master. In a synod of the Irish clergy, which was held in 
 the city of Waterford, the brief lately granted by Alexander 
 III, and the former bull of Pope Adrian, were solemnly 
 promulged ; the English monarch was formally proclaimed 
 Lord of Ireland ; and the censures of the church were de- 
 nounced, with the most dreadful fulminations, against all 
 who should call in question the validity of the grant, or 
 presume to impeach the authority of the illustrious repre- 
 sentative of the pontiff in that island.f 
 
 * Cambrensis, Lcl. B. 1, ch. 4. 
 
 t See O'Connor's Historical Address, Vol 1, pp. 65, 86. Lan"^ 
 igan's Ecclcs. Hist, of Ireland, Vol. IV, p. 222. 
 
EVENTS TILL THB DEATH OF HENRY. ^ 377 
 
 Fitz-Andelm's first care, as soon as he had assumed the 
 reins of government, was by craft or violence to dispossess 
 the original adventurers of their best settlements, and to 
 engross to himself and his dependants whatever was valu- 
 able within the pale. Discouraged therefore by the rapa- 
 city of the chief governor, as well as by the jealousy and 
 suspicion of their sovereign, the most enterprising of the 
 colonists engaged in two expeditions in quest of new settle- 
 ments, the one into Connaught under the leadership of 
 Milo de Cogan ; and the other into Ulster, under John De 
 Courcey. 
 
 The invasion of Connaught by De Cogan, notwithstand- 
 ing the treaty of peace which had been agreed upon at 
 Windsor, appears to have been without any plausible pre- 
 text whatever ; but its complete failure renders it the less 
 prominent in those acts of injustice committed against the 
 natives, at this period, by the rapacity and inhumanity of 
 the British adventurers. De Cogan, however, was prob- 
 ably induced to undertake this expedition by the magni- 
 ficent promises of Murrogh, a son of Roderic O'Connor, 
 who had already, by his own ambitious projects, involved 
 his family and province in considerable disorder. Mile's 
 forces, consisting of forty knights, two hundred horsemen, 
 and three hundred archers, proceeding on their expedition, 
 were reinforced at Roscommon by the junction of Mur- 
 rogh's followers ; but the allied troops were defeated 
 without even a battle. Alarmed by this unexpected inva- 
 sion of their province, the Conacians drove away their 
 cattle, deposited their provisions in places of concealment, 
 and even burned their churches, — an act of profanation 
 altogether new to the Irish ; and thus in a short time ren- 
 
 Y 
 
878 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 dered tlie whole country a perfect desert, without anything 
 valuable to excite the cupidity of their invaders. 
 
 Before this time, amidst the violence and rapacity of 
 domestic feuds, the churches in Ireland were considered as 
 sacred and inviolable sanctuaries, where provisions of every 
 kind, as well as the most valuable effects, might be depo- 
 sited, without the danger of their being disturbed by the in- 
 cursions of an enemy. But the English, far from entertain- 
 ing the same respect for the sanctity of those sacred asy- 
 lums, had not only seized upon the goods that were laid 
 up in the churches, but had committed innumerable other 
 depredations whenever their conduct met with any resist- 
 ance. As the clergy of Leinster had now become the ob- 
 sequious instruments of their new masters, a synod that 
 was convened at Dublin by Vivian, the pope's legate, gave 
 liberty to the English troops, by an ordinance, to furnish 
 themselves with necessary provisions from the churches, 
 upon the payment of their just value. De Cogan's follow- 
 ers however, being deprived of this resource upon the pres- 
 ent occasion by the measures which the natives adopted, 
 were obliged to relinquish their undertaking, and to return 
 home, lest an inglorious end by famine should effect that 
 which their enemies at the time were unable to accom- 
 plish. Being pursued without much effect by the Cona- 
 cians, they succeeded in reaching their destination ; whilst 
 Murrogh, by whom they had been invited into Connaught, 
 was left to the resentment of his countrymen, who sen- 
 tenced him, with the concurrence of his own father, to 
 have his eyes put out, as a punishment for his treachery, 
 in attempting to betray his country into the hands of its 
 enemieSc 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 379 
 
 But the expedition of De Courcey was not so unsuccessful 
 in Ulster, notwithstanding the spirit with which he was 
 opposed by the gallant Ultonians. This leader, who pos- 
 sessed a robust constitution and great strength of body, 
 was ardent and impetuous in all his undertakings ; and by 
 his marriage with the daughter of Grodred, king of Man, 
 and a feudatory of the crown of Denmark, he strengthened 
 his own influence, and secured himself from the danger of 
 Banish opposition. Addicted, however, to an imbecile 
 superstition, he had learned from the prophecies of Merlin 
 that the conquest of Ulster was reserved for his sword ; 
 and his Irish followers soon found out another prophet, 
 who declared that Down, the immediate object of his en- 
 terprise, was to be subdued by a stranger mounted on a 
 white horse, with a shield charged with painted birds. 
 Having accoutred himself according to this descriptien 
 and arrived at Down, with a band of about five hundred 
 men,' he seized upon that town, and putting it in a state 
 of defence, evinced a determination to maintain the pos- 
 sessions he had acquired. 
 
 Included in the treaty at Windsor which the king of Eng- 
 land had made with the whole body of the Irish people, in 
 the person of their monarch, the Ultonians had neither dread- 
 ed nor expected any hostilities from the English settlers; but 
 De Courcey, relying on the grant which that monarch had 
 previously made him of the province of Ulster, provided he 
 could conquer it, would listen to no remonstrance and 
 proceeded in his course of unwarrantable aggression. Vivian, 
 the pope's legate, was then residing at Down, to whom appli- 
 cation was made by Dunlene, the prince of that territory ; 
 and after that ecclesiastic had remonstrated in vain with 
 
380 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the British invader, he is said to have been so provoked 
 with this act of injustice and so affected by the sufferings 
 of an unoffending people, that although the chief part of 
 his commission was to prevail on the Irish to acknowledge 
 the title of the king of England, he now boldly advised 
 Dunlene to have recourse to arms, and to exert himself as 
 a brave prince, in order to rescue his territories from these 
 rapacious invaders.* 
 
 Impelled by the necessity of his circumstances, and 
 encouraged by the advice of the legato, Dunlene, with the 
 aid of some confederate lords took up arms in defence of 
 his territory, and three battles were fought ; in which victory 
 leaned to the side of the English. In the last of these 
 engagements, however, Do Courcey and his followers were 
 placed in the most imminent danger of total extermination. 
 Having been engaged in ravaging the lands of MacMahon, 
 a revolted chieftain, they were attacked suddenly by 
 the Irish in a dangerous defile and suffered great loss in 
 their retreat to a more eligible situation. Here, however, 
 where they must shortly have fallen victims either to the rage 
 of their enemies or to the want of provisions, they resolved 
 upon surprising the Irish by night, as the Ultonians were 
 found in a state of unguarded security by Armoric of St. 
 Laurence, a valiant knight, who had with much peril 
 explored their position. Stimulated by the desperate cir- 
 cumstances under which they were placed, Be Courcey's 
 forces made a furious onset with loud uproar upon the 
 enemy, and such was the confusion which this unexpected 
 assault created that the Irish were slaughtered without 
 
 * Leland. ut supra, 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 381 
 
 resistance, scarcely two hundred of them escaping, whilst 
 the assailants lost only two men in the enterprise. Having 
 gained this advantage over the natives, De Courcey 
 continued afterwards to maintain his ground in the north, 
 though defeated in two battles by a prince of the territory 
 of Orgial, who had burned a ship of his, near Newry, and 
 massacred all the crew.* 
 
 A. D. 1178. Through the jealousy of the English monarch 
 excited against Raymond le Gros, Fitzandelm had, at first, 
 been sent into Ireland, but Henry at length becoming sensible 
 of the evils of his administration, removed him from the 
 office of chief governor, and appointed Hugh de Lacy in 
 his stead, with the title of lord procurator-general. This 
 nobleman, who was eminently qualified to fill the impor- 
 tant office to which he had been appointed, laboured to 
 repair the losses, as well as to extend the force of the 
 English colony. De Cogan and Fitzstephen, to whom the 
 lands of Desmond had been granted by their sovereign, with- 
 out any regard to the stipulations of the treaty made 
 with Roderic, entered into an agreement with the prince 
 of that territory ; and the latter having surrendered 
 to them seven cantreds of land contiguous to the city 
 of Cork, was allowed to continue lord of the remaining 
 twenty-four. But Philip de Borassa, who had received a 
 similar grant of Limerick, fled to Cork with considerable 
 trepidation, when he found that the chieftans of Thomond 
 being resolved to oppose him, had, on his approaching Lime- 
 rick, set fire to what remained, or had been repaired, of 
 that unfortunate city. 
 
 * Annals of Leinster at 1178. Leland, B. L, Cap, 5. 
 
382 HISTOEY OF IRELAND. 
 
 By the vigilance of De Lacy, as well as his prudence in 
 managing the affairs of the colony, matters soon began to 
 wear a more promising appearance. He had retarded the 
 English power in Meath, which had been lost during the 
 administration of his predecessor, and had encouraged a 
 coalition of English and Irish by his marriage with the 
 daughter of Roderic O'Connor, but having been assailed 
 by the calumnies of the envious, he was recalled by his 
 sovereign, and the government was committed to John, 
 constable of Cheshire, and the bishop of Coventry, two 
 strangers to the country, and little qualified for this 
 important trust. However, in the short space of three 
 months, the king was convinced of the impolicy of this 
 appointment, as well as of the injustice of his suspicions 
 respecting the late chief governor ; and De Lacy was res- 
 tored to his office, notwithstanding the efforts of his 
 enemies to the contrary. 
 
 The weakness of the colonial government in its infantile 
 state afforded many opportunities to the native princes of 
 overturning it altogether ; but • involved in the perpetual 
 surge and eddy of their own dissensions they continued 
 regardless of everything that was not immediately con- 
 nected with their own local concerns. To that spirit of 
 retaliation which was evinced from the earliest period by 
 the Irish chieftains, the interests of their country had 
 always been sacrificed, and a succession of outrages had 
 been perpetuated which remain as so many blots upon 
 the pages of that national history. Nor did such feuds 
 now rage with less violence than formerly, when those 
 toparchs might have perceived the general calamity which 
 their divisions had brought upon their common country, 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 383 
 
 "A young prince of the Hy-Niall race, and heir apparent 
 to the rights of that family, fell by the hand of a rival 
 lord : this rival was killed in revenge. The partisans on 
 each side as the several powers prevailed, were butchered 
 with every circumstance of triumphant barbarity. In 
 Connaught the blinded son of Roderic was rescued from 
 prison by his partisans, and the flame of dissension kindled.* 
 
 Other sons of that unfortunate monarch, who had long 
 proved the implacable disturbers of his government, were 
 engaged in the most desperate hostilities ; and such was 
 the violence with which faction raged among the Conacians 
 that sixteen young lords fell in one battle, the heirs apparent 
 of the ruling families in the western province.f Desmond 
 and Thomond were in a similar state of intestine commo- 
 tion j and the chieftains of Leinster were animated by 
 mutual jealousies, as well as by the deadliest hatred towards 
 each other. 
 
 Whatever opinion may be formed of the justice of 
 Henry's claim to the sovereignty of Ireland, it is cause of 
 regret that the whole island could not at this time be re- 
 duced to one regular system of government ; and that some ' 
 plan could not have been devised to prevent those evils which 
 distracted the nation and rendered the country a per- 
 petual scene of carnage and desolation. Had the English 
 monarch been faithful to the promises he made when he 
 first visited Ireland, and secured to the people that 
 form of government which some say he made them swear 
 to uphold, no revolution could have been more happy to 
 
 * Gordon. 
 
 t See Leland. Book I., Cap. 5, 
 
384 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 the nation, nor any act more glorious to the monarch him 
 self. How attached soever the natives might have been by 
 long habits to their own institutions, they could not but 
 have felt the heavy, grievous, and arbitrary exactions of 
 their lords ; and from these they would have been exon- 
 erated by the establishment of English laws. It is true the 
 feudal incidents were severe enough, but still they were 
 certain and fixed ; and it is probable had the English system 
 been introduced into Ireland at this period, its superiority to 
 that which prevailed would have recommended it to 
 the people, and that they would have thankfully received 
 it, notwithstanding their national prejudices and predelic- 
 tions. But the English monarch, far from acting such a 
 generous part, having made extensive grants to his Norman 
 adventurers and raised them to the rank of independent 
 princes, only added to the causes of party collision, and 
 reduced the country to a more grievous state of warfare and 
 anarchy than it had hitherto suffered since the time of the 
 Danish invasion. 
 
 A. D. 1181. AmMst the vast political and social changes 
 which were going forward in his native country, and 
 while he himself was an exile in Normandy by the com- 
 mand of his new sovereign, Lawrence O'Toole, the 
 archbishop of Dublin departed this life in the winter of 
 the year 1181. This prelate was a native of Leinster, and 
 in his early years had been delivered by his father, a 
 Lagenian chieftain, as a hostage to Dermod Mac Murchad, 
 who then filled the provincial throne. Committed to the 
 charge of the abbot of Glendalogh, at that period in life 
 
 * See O'Con., Dissert, p. 268, 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 385 
 
 when the habits of the mind receive their incipient ten- 
 dency, he soon contracted a taste for monastic seclusion .' 
 and by the sanctity of his manners, and his devotional 
 austerities, he was recommended to that high station in 
 the church which he afterwards filled as archbishop of 
 Dublin. The nobility of his birth, as well as the esteem 
 in which he was held by his countrymen for piety and 
 zeal, soon attracted the attention of every grade in society, 
 and he was necessarily called forth to take a part in 
 public affairs. To Eoderic O'Connor in all his difficulties 
 he had proved a valuable counsellor, as well as a diligent 
 and faithful emissary ; and his zeal for his country must 
 appear the more amiable, as it was marked with a degree 
 of moderation which was seldom to be found amongst the 
 Irish of that unhappy period. The part which he acted 
 in the synod of Cashel, and his apparent desertion of the 
 cause of his former master, have been the subject of severe 
 animadversion by some intemperate writers;* but perhaps 
 the culpability which seems to attach to him has been too 
 highly coloured by partiality and prejudice. Affected by 
 the wrongs which his countrymen sustained, and the 
 iniquitous proceedings of some of the king's representatives 
 in Ireland, even after he had found it necessary to 
 submit to Henry, he made a journey to England for the 
 purpose of laying before that prince those injuries and 
 
 . ♦ Dr. Phelan caUs him a " manifold traitor to his church, hii 
 country, his native prince, and the sovereign of his own election,*' 
 but perhaps he formed this opinion from a very partial view of 
 the whole of his conduct. See Phelan's Vol. of the Church of 
 Rome in Ire., p. 19. 
 
386 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 oppressions.* Summoned from that country to attend 
 the council of Lateran, in the year 1179, he obtained the 
 king's permission to attend j but not until he had taken 
 a solemn oath to do nothing at that meeting which would 
 be prejudicial to the interests of the English monarch.f 
 Oaths, however, in that gloomy age of superstition and 
 immorality had but little influence upon mankind in 
 general, when their interest was concerned, especially when 
 they were taken under the influence of fear or coercion. 
 0' Toole displayed therefore his zeal against the injustice 
 of the English governors in Ireland, and made the most 
 affiecting representations in this council of the wrongs and 
 calamities of his countrymen. It is asserted by some 
 Irish writers, J that the archbishop on this occasion obtained 
 a revocation of the papal grant of Ireland which had been 
 made to the English monarch ; but, be that as it may, it 
 is certain that his loud and vehement complaints were well 
 received by the members of that ecclesiastical assembly. 
 Cambrensis observes, that " he exerted himself with all the 
 zeal of his nation, for the privileges of the church, and 
 
 * " On this occasion, we are told, that an extraordinary and 
 whimsical incident had well nigh proved fatal to the prelate. 
 He was officiating in the church of Canterbury, when a man of 
 unsound mind, struck suddenly by the circumstances of the 
 place, the appearance, and the occupation of the archbishop, 
 seized the thought of honoring him with the crown of martyr- 
 dom; and for this purpose assaulted him with the utmost 
 violence; nor was Lawrence rescued from his attack till he had 
 been desperately wounded in the head." — Leland, ut supra. 
 
 t Lanigan, Vol. IV., p. 238. 
 
 t O'SuUivan, Beare's Catholic Hist., p. 62, 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OP HENRY. 387 
 
 against the king's authority;" and, in acknowledgment 
 of his eminent services, he was raised by his holiness to 
 the dignity of Apostolic legate. But he was never per- 
 mitted to exercise this newly-acquired authority : for, on 
 his return to Ireland, arrayed in this ecclesiastical panoply, 
 he was prevented by the king, and was obliged to spend 
 the remainder of his days in Normandy. 
 
 0' Toole was succeeded in the archiepiscopal chair by 
 John Comyn, an Englishman, whom Henry had recom- 
 mended to the clergy of Dublin, and whose election had 
 been confirmed by Lucius the Roman pontiff. Ireland at 
 this time required men of abilities to repair the loss of 
 some of the most distinguished of the original adventurers ; 
 and it is probable that Comyn was promoted to his new 
 dignity rather for his vigour and abilities in temporal 
 affairs than for those virtues which were necessary in the 
 character of a Christian bishop. 
 
 A. D. 1182. By the desolating current of time, and the 
 mutation of human affairs, the original adventurers were 
 being swept off the stage on which they had acted so 
 prominent a part, and it became necessary that their place 
 should be supplied by others whose attachment to the 
 interests of the English monarch would be the best security 
 for the permanence and- stability of the colony. Five 
 years had now elapsed since De Cogan and Fitz-stephen had 
 established themselves in Desmond ; and the latter, though 
 deeply affected by the death of a favourite son, seemed to 
 have the prospect of a peaceable repose provided for his old 
 age. But such is the uncertainty and transitory nature of 
 all human enjoyments, that his hopes were soon blasted 
 by a series of unexpected and untoward circumstances. 
 
388 HISTORY OP IRELAND. 
 
 While journeying from Cork to the town of Lismore, in 
 order to confer with some of the citizens of Waterford, De 
 Cogan was assassinated with six others, one of whom was 
 his son-in-law and a son of Fitz-stephen's ; by Mac Tire, an 
 Irishman, whom he had regarded as a trustworthy friend, 
 and who had invited him and his company to his house 
 with the strongest professions of hospitality that he might 
 have an opportunity of perpetrating this infamous deed * 
 Mac Carthy of Desmond instantly attacked the city of 
 Cork with all the forces he was able to assemble; and 
 Fitz-stephen, overcome by sorrow for the murder of his 
 friends, was unable to take any vigorous measures for its 
 immediate defence. The garrison, however, having been 
 reinforced by troops which Raymond Le Gros had conveyed 
 by sea from Wexford, obliged MacCarthy to submit to his 
 enemies; but an accumulated load of sorrows had produced 
 its effect upon the mind of Fitz-stephen, and on the arrival 
 of these troops his reason had resigned its throne. 
 
 By the death of some, and the retirement of others, the 
 original adventurers had now nearly all departed from the 
 former theatre of their exploits : and amongst those whom 
 the king had sent to supply their place were Richard de 
 Cogan, brother to Milo, and Philip Barry, both officers of 
 courage and experience. Barry was accompanied by his 
 brother Girald, bettor known by the name of Cambrensis, 
 an ecclesiastic high in the king's favour, and whom he had 
 appointed as tutor to prince John, his youngest son. The 
 end for which Cambrensis is said to have paid this visit to 
 Ireland, was to inspect the state of the country for the 
 
 Cambrensis, Leland, ut supra. 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 389 
 
 information of the young prince, whom his father intended 
 to constitute its governor. The insolence of this Welsh 
 ecclesiastic, together with that of the new archbishop 
 of Dublin, towards the Irish clergy was little calculated to 
 conciliate a nation already but too much prepossessed against 
 the British name and authority : and the mutual recrimi- 
 nations of the two parties in their ecclesiastical synods 
 were by no means serviceable to the cause of religion in 
 general. By the Irish clergy the English were accused 
 of every species of lewdness and immorality ; whilst the 
 latter retorted the charge of barbarism, falsehood, and 
 treachery, upon the Irish. A reply is preserved made by 
 Maurice, archbishop of Cashel, to Cambrensis, when the 
 latter contemptuously remarked that among all the saints 
 of this country there could not be found one martyr. " It 
 is true," replied the prelate, "our country boasts of 
 numbers of holy men and scholars, who have enlightened 
 not only Ireland, but all Europe ; but we have ever held 
 piety and learning in too much reverence to injure, much 
 less to destroy the promoters of either. Perhaps now, sir," 
 added he, " that Englishmen have settled in our island, 
 and your master holds the monarchy in his hands, we 
 shall be enabled to add martyrs to our catalogue of saints." 
 To add political to religious discontent, the government 
 was transferred from De Lacy to Philip de Barossa, who 
 distinguished himself in nothing but acts of rapacity and 
 oppression, until he was superseded by another whose mal- 
 administration nearly brought ruin upon the English colony 
 in this country. 
 
 A. D. 1185. Prince John, the youngest son of Henry the 
 Second, had been nominated Lord of Ireland by his father 
 
390 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 in a council of barons and prelates, so early as the year 
 1178 ; and now having attained the age of eighteen, he 
 prepared to enter upon the functions of that dignity with 
 which he had been invested. In order to remind the 
 English monarch and his son, upon this occasion, of his 
 own supreme dominion over this island, as well as to cast 
 perhaps a degree of sarcasm on the foppish imbecility of 
 the juvenile governor, the Roman pontiff is said to have 
 sent him a curious diadem of peacock's feathers hallowed 
 by his own benediction, as a token of his investiture. 
 Accompanied by a train of Norman courtiers, and several 
 grave churchmen,^ John embarked with a fleet of sixty 
 ships, and after a prosperous voyage arrived in Waterford. 
 On his arrival as chief governor of the country, such was 
 the alacrity and cheerfulness with which even the most 
 refractory of the Irish lords hastened from all parts to 
 make their submissions to him, that important consequences 
 might have resulted from a little prudent management 
 in the administration of this prince. But John possessed 
 no single requisite qualification for this oflSce, and the 
 
 ♦ Amongst the ecclesiastics who attended upon the young prince 
 was Cambrensis, who has left us a history of the proceedings 
 of his countrymen in Ireland at this time, erroneously styled a 
 History of the Conquest of Ireland. 
 
 " "What I would say on the whole is, that if hatred, enmity? 
 open professed hostility, special interest and actual engagement 
 in the destruction of the ancient Irish nation ; if ignorance of 
 their language and wilful passing their history, even the most 
 authentic of their records : if these can render Cambrensis an 
 author ofcredit, then no writer however idle, unwarrantable, in- 
 credible, false or injurious is to be rejected." Preface to Walsh's 
 Prospect. 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 391 
 
 result was soon such as disappointed the expectations of the 
 people in general. 
 
 Those chieftains of Leinster, who had from the begin- 
 ning espoused the cause of the English monarch, were 
 naturally the foremost in giving expression to their feelings 
 of regard and submission to their youthful chief governor. 
 The national garb of the Irish,* so different from that of 
 the foppish young noblemen in the prince's train, at first 
 excited the merriment of the latter ; and when the Irish 
 lords, according to the cordiality of their own established 
 customs, advanced without any ceremony to kiss the young 
 prince, they were rudely pushed back by his attendants, 
 who were as great strangers to true politeness, as they were 
 to prudence and sound policy. And, as if this insult were 
 not sufficient to men entertaining such high ideas of their 
 own rank and respectability, the whole company burst into 
 loud laughter, plucked their beards in derision, and treated 
 them in other respects with a degree of indignity that was 
 well calculated to rouse every feeling of resentment in the 
 breasts of the native chieftains. 
 
 Enraged with the treatment they had received, and medi- 
 tating vengeance in their hearts, the Irish lords retired from 
 the court j and meeting with others of their countrymen, 
 who were hastening to the prince, they informed them 
 
 our historians remarks : 
 "If the women were attentire to adorn their persons, the men 
 affected rather a warlike aspect : their thick beards, and great 
 whiskers, their glibhs or bushy hair hanging careless over their 
 visage, joined with an athletic body, gB.ye them a fierce and evtn 
 hideous appearance." Lei. Prelim. Disc. XXXVI, 
 
392 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 how they had been requited for their former loyalty and 
 present zeal. The intelligence was rapidly diffused, and 
 produced a most powerful effect upon the nation in gene- 
 ral. It was justly remarked, that when the firm allies and 
 friends of the English monarch were treated with such 
 intolerable indignity, little favour could be expected 
 from the new chief governor towards those who had been 
 inveterately hostile to the English government. But had 
 this act of imprudence on the part of the Normans been 
 likely to be forgotten, their subsequent conduct was well 
 calculated to cause the resentment of the people to burn 
 against them with still greater fury. The minions of the 
 young prince, who were as rapacious as they were insolent, 
 seized the lands of those Irish who held them by English 
 tenure under the lords of the pale, and attempted also, by 
 pretended grants and legal frauds,to treat the early British 
 colonists in a similar manner. 
 
 Resolved to take vengeance on the oppressors of their 
 country, as well as influenced by the indignity with which 
 they had been treated themselves, the insulted lords and 
 dispossed tenants of Leinster fled to their countrymen in 
 Connaught and elsewhere, and made such representations 
 of the conduct of the English, as induced the native chief- 
 tains to lay aside for the present, their private dissensions, 
 and to unite their forces against the common enemy. A 
 storm therefore, from all quarters, burst at once upon the 
 British settlements, whilst the foppish courtiers and effemi- 
 nate soldiery that had come from England with the young 
 prince, shrunk from the danger ; and, seeking their own 
 safety in fortified places, left the defence of those settle- 
 ments to the veteran colonists^ In the first fury of assault, 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 393 
 
 the carnage and desolation that were spread in every 
 quarter presented a scene revolting and horrible. The 
 forces of the settlers, with their leaders at their head fell 
 beneath the fury of their excited antagonists, as the garri- 
 son of Ardfinnan, the troops of Robert Barry at Lismore 
 those of Robert de la Poer in Ossory, and those of Canton 
 and Fitz-hugh in other places. By the intrepidity of 
 Theobald Fitz-walter, the founder of the noble family of 
 Ormond, Cork was preserved in this general visitation ; and 
 Meath was, to a considerable extent, protected by the 
 valour and prudence of William Petit. 
 
 The prevalence of these disorders throughout the country 
 had produced a baneful effect upon the prosperity of the 
 English settlements. In Meath the lands of Hugh de 
 Lacy had sustained considerable damage from the devas- 
 tations of the natives, but as soon as tranquillity was, in any 
 measure, restored, that nobleman set about repairing it 
 with indefatigable perseverence. Intent upon this object 
 he proceeded to erect new forts in every situation which 
 required places of strength, or to repair the old ones wher- 
 ever that was practicable. In carrying on these important 
 works he was accustomed to oversee the labourers himself 
 among whom were many of his Irish tenants, to give them 
 such directions as were necessary, and frequently to labour 
 in the trenches with his own hands. But erecting a for- 
 tress upon the site of an ancient monastery,named Darrome 
 said to have been founded by St. Columba, one of his own 
 workmen, shocked even to madness, at such profanation of 
 this ancient seat of devotion, seized the moment when De 
 Lacy was employed in the trenches; and as he stooped 
 down to explain his orders, drew out the battle-axe, which 
 z 
 
394 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 had been concealed under his long mantle, and at oi» 
 vigorous blow smote off his head.^ The assassin was too 
 much favoured by his compatriots not to effect his escape, 
 and he fled to his countrymen in arms, exulting in the merit 
 of having thus taken vengeance for the sacrilegious conduct 
 of his victim. 
 
 1186. Embarrassed by weightier matters in other parts- 
 of his dominions, the English monarch had shown almost 
 as much imbecility in the management of Ireland as he had 
 of ability in conducting the affairs of his territories in Eng- 
 land and France. At length, being informed of the ruin- 
 ous effects produced in that country, by the maladministra- 
 tions of his son, he recalled the young prince, after eight 
 months of rueful disorder ; and John De Courcy was ap- 
 pointed chief governor in his stead. Had the Irish princes- 
 remained united, the term of this office, as well as the very 
 existence of EngUsh rule in Ireland, would have been ren- 
 dered extremely precarious ; but, after the first fury of 
 their assault on the British settlements, the revival of their- 
 former feuds left room for De Courcy to make arrange- 
 ments for the defence of the colonists. In Conn aught the 
 sons of Koderic O'Connor had taken up arms against 
 their father ; and completed the misfortunes of that aged 
 monarch. Forced by Conquovar, his eldest son, to resiga 
 his provincial government, Roderic took refuge in the- 
 monastery of Cong, where he spent the remaining twelve 
 years of his life, and died in 1198, in the eighty-second 
 year of his age. 
 
 This prince has been blamed because he did not make » 
 
 * Leland, citing from Anonymous Annals in MS., B. L 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 395 
 
 more vigorous effort in defence of his territories when the 
 sovereignty of the nation was wrested from his hands. But 
 when we consider the circumstances under which he was 
 placed, and over which he could have had no control, his char- 
 acter must be viewed in a much more favourable light. In 
 the earlier part of his life, his failings, which were con- 
 spicuously prominent, received but little amelioration from 
 their neighbouring good qualities. Possessing all the 
 haughtiness of an Irish prince, and at the same time 
 devoted to voluptuous enjoyment, his youth was spent in a 
 course of conduct which, even if no other causes had inter- 
 fered, would have ultimately produced the most ruinous 
 consequences. Rash and precipitate he generally showed 
 himself repulsive to those who would faithfully reprove his 
 juvenile licentiousness, whilst the ductility of his temper, 
 and the easiness of his disposition became a snare to him 
 in his path, and placed his passions under the direction of 
 bad men who flattered his vices and endeavoured to make 
 them the means of promoting their own advantage. With 
 a degree of severity which was, perhaps, not altogether jus- 
 tifiable, his father, Turlogh the Great, attempted to break 
 this ungovernable spirit, and, for this end, had him put fre- 
 quently under confinement : but this had little effect upon 
 his general conduct until more serious reflection produced 
 its own effect, and so far convinced him of his error that 
 he soon forgot the over-rigorous treatment he had received, 
 and was wholly reconciled to his royal father. Bred up 
 in the camp almost from his infancy, his military skill was 
 by no means contemptible ; and notwithstanding his licen- 
 tiousness in private life, he never devoted to pleasures the 
 time which the public service required to be spent either 
 
396 HISTORY OF IRELAND. 
 
 in the cabinet or in the field. With increasing years his 
 better qualities^^became predominant. By his affability 
 and sincerity, as well as by his generosity, he gained many 
 friends who adhered closely to his interest amidst all the 
 trials and vicissitudes he experienced. The deplorable 
 state to which the nation had been reduced by the preva- 
 lence of faction, when his administration of the sovereign 
 authority commenced, necessarily created^for him a number 
 of avowed, asjwell as of secret enemies ; and notwithstand- 
 ing he was able sometimes to repress their insolence, they 
 leagued withjthe invaders in the hour of his distress, and, 
 very justly,^became the first victims of their own treachery. 
 Nor was it*in the time of comparative prosperity that he 
 evinced his zeal for the good of the nation, but^his con- 
 stancy in the public service when fortune] cast a lowering 
 cloud over the, destinies of his country appeared in that 
 fortitude, equanimity, and passive courage which dignified 
 the last scene of his administration. Such was Roderie 
 O'Connor, the king of Connaught, and the last, as well as 
 by far the most unfortunate of the native monarchs of 
 Ireland. 
 
 The disordered state of Connaught after the resignation, 
 of Roderie invited the attention of De Courcey, and from a 
 defensive warfare, which he was obliged at first to maintain, 
 he resolved to attempt the subjugation of the province. Hav- 
 ing marched^ however, into that country, and finding the 
 forces collected to oppose him too formidable, he made an 
 inglorious retreat, which he effected with considerable diffi- 
 culty and the loss of some of the bravest of his knights.* 
 
 * See Leland, ut suj^ra. 
 
EVENTS TILL THE DEATH OF HENRY. 39T 
 
 Meanwhile disturbances prevailed everywhere in Ulsterj 
 and several of the chieftains of that province lost their lives 
 in the petty disputes which they carried on with each other, 
 as well as with the English settlers and with the chief 
 governor himself. Nor had the late attempt upon Con- 
 naught calmed in the least the ceaseless vortex of internal 
 strife. Conquovar Moienmay, who after the resignation of 
 his father had gained the ascendancy, was subsequently 
 murdered by one of his own brothers, and that brother 
 again fell by the hands of a son of the murdered dynast. 
 Distracted by party rage, and torn asunder by the violence 
 of its rulers, the province remained for some time in a 
 state of anarchy, till at length Cathal, surnamed of the 
 Bloody-handy one of the sons of the late monarch, estab- 
 lished for a time his authority over Connaught, and 
 threatened to restore the Irish monarchy which had been 
 lost by the misfortunes and miscarriages of his father. 
 Amidst all these commotions De Courcey was enabled to 
 maintain the authority of the English government, and to 
 protect the settlement, not more by his own vigour and abi- 
 lities than by the dissensions of his enemies ; until the 
 death of Henry the Second, which took place in July,^ 
 1189. The changes which followed put an end to hi& 
 vigorous administration. 
 
 THE END. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The difl&culty of pronouncing the Celtic names of places 
 and persons mentioned in the foregoing history, has sug- 
 gested to the editor the expediency of making a few 
 remarks which may tend, partially, to remove it. No 
 general directions can be supplied which would enable the 
 reader, who may be entirely ignorant of the Irish language, 
 to pronounce such names with unfailing accuracy; some 
 ability to read and pronounce the language is absolutely 
 required, in order to ensure such a result ; and even in 
 the case of a person so qualified, names are spelled so dif- 
 ferently by different authors, that it is not always easy to 
 recognize words as the same, which may nevertheless 
 designate the same place or person. The reason of this 
 diversity is obvious when we consider that the Celtic lan- 
 guage, still spoken in many parts of Ireland, has almost 
 no surviving literature. 
 
 Nevertheless, it may be a little help to the reader to 
 remember that when two or more vowels occur together in 
 any word he should rarely pronounce more than one of 
 them; thus, the name AENGHUS is pronounced ANGUS, 
 the vowel E being elided. It may here, also, be observed 
 that the letter H has frequently no power appreciable or 
 capable of being rendered into a customary sound in 
 English. The letter C is invariably pronounced like the 
 English K, The consonants BH, and MH, are pro- 
 
APPENDIX. 399 
 
 nounced like V. In fact when the language is written or 
 printed in the ancient Celtic character, the H does not 
 occur, and a mark or dot is placed over the preceding 
 consonant to indicate the proper sound. Thus, also, GH 
 is pronounced nearly like W. 
 
 A few words used in the volume are added, with their 
 pronunciation annexed, which will shew the general sys- 
 tem perhaps more effectually than more lengthened remarks 
 on this subject. 
 
 Pronounced 
 Sabhul (the place where St. Patrick died), Saul. 
 Feidhlim (a proper name), Felim. 
 
 Ban-sidhe (a name occurring in connexion 
 
 with a popular superstition), Banshee. 
 
 Boroihme (an adjunct to the name of the 
 
 celebrated king of Munster), Boru. 
 
 Teamhra (the palace of the Irish monarchs, 
 
 as occasionally spelled), Tara. 
 
 The foregoing examples of pronunciation are given not 
 as exact, but with the view of rendering the sounds, in 
 English letters, as nearly as all practical purposes require- 
 In a language like the Irish, consisting, properly, of only 
 eighteen letters, of which one-third are vowels, the diffi- 
 culty which we have stated and exemplified is easily 
 accounted for. Correctness and harmony of pronuncia- 
 tion are attainable only by an adept. 
 

 Date Due 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 1 "> S?0 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 IAN 1 
 
 L^OJ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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